The Death of Lorca

_____for Ian Gibson

He dislikes Protestant churches,
big organ instead of high altar,
minister’s sermon in English
facing the congregation; the priest,
back to the laity, speaks in Latin. 

Shoes that do not move remind
him of death, all the dead bodies
he sees as a boy are laid out flat
on their backs, dressed in their
Sunday best, wearing shoes.

He is friends with Salvador Dalí,
Luis Buñuel, and other great
writers of his generation, plays
a key role in a Spanish renaissance
of poetry, drama, art, and film.  

Yet in his hometown of Granada
he is “The Queer with the Bow-Tie.”
As Civil War spreads across
Andalusia he refuses to escape
to the Republican side for fear of
being trapped in a no-man’s zone.

Lorca is arrested. General Queipo
De Llano, the Butcher of Seville,
tells the commandant at Granada
to give the poet, “coffee,
plenty of coffee.”

The Black Squad takes him
to the nearby resort town of Viznar,
favorite site to execute Nationalists.
(one witness cries out, “Murderers!
You’re going to kill a genius!”)

Told he will be shot, Lorca asks
for a last confession, but the priest
is gone. Before dawn he is shoved
in a truck with two bullfighters
and a teacher with a wooden leg.  

They are killed at Fuente Grande,
a famous spring known in Arab times
as “the Fountain of Terror.” Later,
one murderer boasts, “two bullets
in the ass for being queer.”

William Heath has published four poetry books: The Walking Man, Steel Valley Elegy, Going Places, and Alms for Oblivion; three chapbooks: Night Moves in Ohio, Leaving Seville, and Inventing the Americas; three novels: The Children Bob Moses Led (winner of the Hackney Award), Devil Dancer, and Blacksnake’s Path; a work of history, William Wells and the Struggle for the Old Northwest (winner of two Spur Awards and the Oliver Hazard Perry Award); and a collection of interviews, Conversations with Robert Stone. He lives in Annapolis.  www.williamheathbooks.com