JURAMENTADO

Bind the body in bondage to God, the blood flow
slowed steals the quick out of the bullet's rip,

makes you unstoppable for that flight
of blade that smites the godless bodies.

A streak of dominos falling from your
welded touch, a stroke of devoted luck.

The moving holy body perforated by a useless
gun guides guerilla warfare: the jungle-buried bodies,

prone, your target, and your flash attack bates
the ineffective smack of bullet. Bodies lie.

Arms are in evolution, now created to cap
this newfound spectacle: a man who dies for love

of the afterlife, no country here his own.
Stories say that women passed, bound their breasts

and spun through town, whirling dervishes
wielding the kris. A fearless edge that gave birth

to the Colt .45, engineered to stop the juramentado.
The latest weapon in the battle of gods.

--This poem previously appeared in Juried Reading, Book 15:
The Poetry Center of Chicago (Plastique Press 2009)