A virgem de Guadalupe

The Virgin of Guadalupe

From the playground to the park,

she tore indiscriminately,

her hair wide behind her like a

flag; dripping with catholica,

purple and gold rosaries

at the snaky body’s every juncture;

velvet ribbon and scraps of lurex,

blue Marys and Theresas.

Through the city she blazed a trail,

her mouth became a firetrap;

she smelt of men

with motorbikes and vintage ephemera.

They called her The Virgin of Guadalupe,

for all her nailgunned roses, her weeping messiahs;

though the name was ironic.

You heard she mothered

noisily behind

the bus shelter at dusk.

In the summer her hair would burn

and the shrines she kept behind her ears would melt,

she’d tear through the city in ankle socks

and not much else.

It won’t be long you see,

before she tears no more –

becomes a legend

for the sewer’s glitterati

and perhaps

cleans rooms in a hotel somewhere.

 Amy Blakemore, (Inglaterra, 1991)