Two Times Two

[resisting arrest with violence]

http://student.culver.org/~klicha/english/images/firing_squad.jpg


Two Times Two
by Ariel Dorfman Last Waltz in Santiago

We all know the number of steps,
cellblock comrade,
to that room.

If it's twenty
they're not taking you to the bathroom.
If it's forty-five
they can't be taking you out
for exercise.

If you get past eighty
and begin
to stumble blindly
up a staircase
oh if you get past eighty
there's only one place
they can take you
there's only one place
there's only one place
now there's only one place left
they can take you.

[resisting arrest with violence]

http://www.amnesty.org/images/resources/stoptorture/brazil_detainee.jpg


Hope
by Ariel Dorfman Last Waltz in Santiago

My son has been
missing
since May 8
of last year.

They took him
just for a few hours
they said
just for some routine
questioning.

After the car left,
the car had no license plate,
we couldn't

find out


anything else
about him.

But now things have changed.
We heard from a comrade
who just got out
that five months later
they were torturing him
in Villa Grimaldi,
at the end of September
they were questioning him
in the red house that belonged to the Grimaldis.

They say they recognized
his voice his screams
they say.

Somebody tell me frankly
what times are these
what kind of world
what country?
What I'm asking is
how can it be
that a father's
joy
a mother's
joy
is knowing
that they
that they are still
torturing
their son?
Which means
that he was alive
five months later
and our greatest
hope
will be to find out
next year
that they're still torturing him
eight months later

and he may might could
still be alive.

[resisting arrest with violence]

http://www.spokesmanreview.com/elections/2004/blogs/youramerica/images/hruska.jpg


Corn Cake
by Ariel Dorfman Last Waltz in Santiago


My old lady had nothing
to do with any of it.

They took her
because she was our mother.
She knew nothing
I mean
nothing about nothing.

Think about it.
Even more than the pain
think how amazed she was.
She never even knew
there were people
like them
in this world.

Almost two and a half years
and she hasn't come back.
They came into the kitchen
and left the kettle boiling
on the stove.
When the old man came home
he found the kettle
dry
steaming on the stove.
Her apron was gone.

Think how she must have
looked at them
for two and a half years,
how she must have ...
think about the blindfold
coming down
over her eyes
for two and a half years
and those same men
who shouldn't be in this world
coming toward her
again.

She was my mother.
I hope she never comes back.