Marcus Cafagña                                  [author bio]

 

La Cucaracha

 

When I recall my baby sister

singing it I don’t think of the cockroach,

antennae and six legs on the run

each time we tiptoed the blind

bowling alley of a hallway

and switched on the light.

 

What I picture is an old car

run out of gas on the desert,

and inside it the mestizo men

who took up arms against all landlords

then disappeared into the Mexican hills,

that ditty of the revolution.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Marcus Cafagña is the author of two books, The Broken World (1996), a National Poetry Series selection, and Roman Fever (2001). His poems have appeared in many journals and anthologies including Crab Orchard Review, Poets of the New Century, and The Southern Review. He teaches in the creative program at Missouri State University.