Monday, May 23, 2005

bitter tea

The tea is bitter.

It has the biting acrid character of smoke from a sulfur pool. It lingers on the tongue. It dares anyone to challenge its legitimacy.

The day is cloudless, but for a thin sheet of smog that is busy being sucked away by a midday wind. The sun pronounces its presense in a thin film of sweat that sticks deleriously to the body. The road is pitted.

It has character.

I sit in a squat two-bedroom flat of a chattering upscale bourgeois district that has no sea, no greenery, no history but it has construction. From out of the window the rattle of building shakes the city's attempt at silence.

The clay of the earth is red. The blood in my veins is red. The flags of this country are red. The flags of my country are red. The cape of a bullfighter is red. Red seems to seep below the surface.

It is a new day like any other, but it will be a newer day than any other.

I plan to be there when it happens.

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