The Hoosier Poems

Mad Mercedes at the Inquisition

By Michael L. Smith

This poem is adapted from the Peruvian myth of Inkarrí and dedicated to the work and memory of the Peruvian anthropologist and novelist Jose Maria Arguedas. No Peruvian writer has captured the bittersweet world of the mestizo, trapped between Indian serfs and white masters, as well as he did. More than 50 versions of the Inkarrí myth were collected in different parts of Peru in last 40 years. Its essence is that the Inka, supposedly Atahualpa or Tupac Amaru, will rise from the grave and rescue his people.

This poem takes one of the legend versions of Inkarrí's return and turns it into a love poem and a lament for the departed lover.

i
before he touched my softness and reason
heaven and earth were a perverse couple
mothers cursed their children like locusts
lovers lost the nights speculating on their sins

ii
he was the offspring of a violent union
between a savage woman and the cunning sun

cosmos was staircase to his door
confining winds within his mouth
he pushed them
past my lips with a burst
while I stuttered
his name
Inkarri
time was mastered
by tying the sun to a mountain
and from the peak
he's launch his golden staff and where it embedded
he edified
oh the temples and cities we built!

iii
sacred dominion enveloped by the spanish king
mercenaries and assassins
Inkarri martyred
beheaded
separated from me
conquistadors consumed
the forests with fire and cathedral
only now
do the eucalyptus grow like the silver hairs on his body

iv
the fox from down under tells me
his body is harbored deep in the earth
the fox from the upper world tells me
his head still living is imprisoned in the bell tower

v
in the soil i feel the intimacy of his body
a tremoring urge grasping my ankles
reaching up toward my thighs
i tear my clothes
and press my body naked to the earth
his joy cutting me in the edge of every rock
give me the tenderness of thorns
the aroma of dung
the rasp of gravel against my breasts
a pigeon from the bell tower lights on my ecstasy

vi
but they would prevent all this
scrubbing passion from my skin like filth
leaching intimacy like a festered bruise
tearing even memory from me
because restoration springs from the loins

vii
now i sit night and day by my looms
singing lullabies and colors
i weave
the mantel and robes made from the finest wool
of the vicuna of the inaccessible ranges
i fell the belly flower grow larger
and now i must go to Cusco