“El Jarabe en Ultratumba”
Zinc etching
José Guadalupe Posada, 1910
From the tomb they come
Dancing a joyous jarabe
Calcanei and phalanges
Upon a glaze of Tyrian purple
Chattering calaveras
Mimicking the buried language
A burst of ancient song
Between bouts of clacking teeth
A living waltz free of the grave
On this deepest night of souls
It is our zapateado cepillado
With flesh-covered bones
For we are the dead
In the afterlife of yearning
And having reached the rapture
We await the mystery of rebirth
LiNdA
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