The museum is behind the hill, from where they
pulled the dead that now rest not so gently, or sold in image
in trinkets and toys to be treasure chest lost or in delectable

syrupy brown sugar candies, texture like cobwebs,
molded into delicious mummies,
sombreros, wrapped in serapes, the colors of the

Mexican flag. Covered in plastic, gripped in pleading hands,
the hawkers fight for our attention, dismiss each other
nearly come to blows for the dollars few.

These vendors soon, buried in the fields where the mummies grow.
If they rot ever so gently, the perfect one out of twenty,
they will rest in glass cases naked to photo snapping masses.

Six mummies for 30 pesos, the best mummy
candy in town. The Chinaman, the doctor,
for free the fat baby and the pregnant women.

Mummy skull bottle openers,
a mug that reads: I am dying for a drink and a woman.
Fetus skull t-shirt, the name of the town underneath.

What of the souls of the dead, we ask.
What do we care of souls, they laugh hard,
what good are souls when it is food and drink we need?

October 9, 2001