| La Cuestita, Michoacán
EL CHARRO SALVADOR NAVARRO NAVARRO
CAMINANDO CON LA BURRA EN LA MILPA
We duck out together.
He wants to get me on that damn burra.
He wants to take me into the milpa.
First to his place, locked up tight.
Don Salvador sees the locura en mi.
He knows there’s something
crazy he likes. I’m not sure what I see
in Salvador, but I can’t leave it alone.
Don Salvador’s got a lock in each room
of his rukita. Chickens run free. Four locks.
He puts me in a chair while he gets ready.
Tonio is his Sancho Panza. I wasn’t too sure
about Tonio, but I catch on. He takes orders
but he also takes care. Don Salvador
comes back into the room, sidles up
to me. We give each other the eye.
I’m thinking of nothing but his poems.
Qué travieso, este cantante haciendo corridos.
He looks at me again. He looks at his side.
He’s got a pistol stuck in his pants.
No, Salvador. De mi lo. Give it to me.
La pistola no va. Ponelo en su cuarto.
He begs me like a child. An 80-year old
man showing me the ropes. I won’t go,
Don Salvador, I say. OK, OK.
He shouts something to Tonio.
He takes me through the cercana.
Behind the gate he keeps that saddle
in an old blue Ford LTD that hasn’t
been on the road in a while. No lights,
tires on their axles, but this:
Popeye painted on one side of the trunk,
Navarro painted on the other side.
Popeye Navarro I think. Looking closer,
Popeye’s by himself, the vato Navarro’s
painted in black stocking cap, white pants,
open crotch, three bronzed beauties
surrounding and making promises.
Who do you think is on the hood?
None other. Jesus himself, life-size
in the cosmos, surrounded by planets.
I’m still disoriented by the pistol.
I’ve never held a loaded .45.
I held one tonight, and taking it
away from him, I felt like the child.
Sube a la burra, don Salvador says.
You get up on the burra, I say.
I’ll walk with you in the corn.
Walking with don Salvador
in the streets of La Cuestita
fills me up. It’s like being
with my mother at baseball games.
Hey, portero, don Salvador cries.
Hey, portero. A la derecha,
Aquí es el rumbo al norte.
Aquí es el Camino Real.
Aquí es el camino de tres preses.
The road to three ponds.
Don Salvador knows I have the camcorder,
and he knows I can’t say no to poems.
He sings. I say, Pare. Stop.
Get the camera ready. OK, Sing.
And he sings. He has gritos.
He’ll talk the poem,
and he’ll swing into memory.
Don Salvador sings. He never repeats himself.
He’s the collected memory of the village.
I am encatado. I know what enchantment
feels like. Salvador knows how to finish
a poem. He dicho, he says, pronouncing
the end of tyranny and the beginning
of justice. He does it all with rhymes
learned in the rural school of Lázaro Cárdenas.
He dicho. I have said it. I have spoken.
Yes you have. Don Salvador takes us
into the milpa. He gets me up on that burra.
Tonio is with us all the time. I am a witness.
Don Salvador sends Tonio into the corn
to get some green ones for eating. This is
the Rumbo a Las Maravillas.
Jim Bodeen
November 17, 2004
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