At the Abandoned Hacienda

Carla Medina de Sánchez, September, 1899*

With one hand touching the gate, Manuél stops.
Ahead, the decayed slave quarters. The drowned fields.
A year since the hacendado got out.

Manuél looks over his shoulder at the shuffling line of the dead
        he has wrestled out of their ditches.
His hand floats up, stutters, then drops.

He tugs the gate out of the mud, steps inside, puts the gate
        back in the mud.
The dead lie down, rain drips onto their limestone eyes.  

Only I watch Manuél coming between the dark walls
        to the foot of the stairs.

What can he bear in his clumped hair but burrs?

What is my name when he calls but a calf running on a long rope?

* One month after San Ciriaco, the most destructive hurricane in Puerto Rico's history, makes landfall