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I am posting this now due to the news that his remains are to be exhumed and examined to determine his cause of death; the dictator Pinochet MIGHT have had this poet silenced. (Meridian Hill is a large park in DC.) http://www.euronews.com/2013/04/08/nobel-laureate-naruda-s-remains-to-be-exhumed-in-chile/ I am shocked to learn that you are a Communist: this matters in 1992. El poeta: el, masculine; poeta, feminine; that's something. I bring you to Meridian Hill, near the statue of Jeanne d'Arc, though she might have been too young, even for you. You are a bi-lingual edition, naturally. Mis novios de mis noches did not, cumulatively, teach me very much, it seems. How sad. Only one of the fountains works. Its spray keeps cleanly to itself. There is no wind; the face of the water sleeps. Bright but not oppressive: the weather, and not the Salvadoran hiding in the shade. He is more shadow than he is flesh. Before sitting, I take the view at the rail: the cascade is trim and clean; nothing but foam down the thirteen steps. I sit facing the butt of Jeanne's horse. I see the sword in her hand and I ask, "How Christian is that?" I am in profile to the shady one. He spreads his legs and cups himself, looking through dark bangs and dark eyes. I nod. He stirs at my suggestion, almond eyes and high cheeks. He sees you in my hands and he passes by. Twenty years later I don't now give a fig that you were a Communist, just that you blew my chance for poetry. October 2012