Dismissed from Tlaltizapa for changing sex
Manuel Palafox sulked in Arenista. At markets
he bought chimoyas, limes and ink from Oaxtepec.
Some days he wore his twenty-ounce sombrero,
Deerskin pants and “charro” boots. On others
Gold-embroidered blouses and red kerseymere skirts.

He wrote to Magonistas; “Zapata is finished.
He takes orders from Obregon. Rally the Peones!
Death to Carranza! Tierra y Libertad!”
He wrote to Lenin; “Trotsky is finished.
Seek concord with the Ukraine Makhnovshchina.
Brest-Litovsk’s a cock-up. Regards to the Missus.”

He wrote to Freud; “Were you coked when you dreamt up this?
No Mexican has even heard of the sexual revolution.
All Eros last year now it’s Thanatos, bloody Thanatos.
Jung was right- grow a beard, you think you’re Moses.
I hope your jaw drops off. Regards to the Missus.”
At last he wrote to Yeats: “Dear Willie, how’s The Vision?

Mine’s double, ha-ha. Shit. Willie, I’m finished
In Mexico – it’s full of bigots. Ireland can’t be worse.
I’ll work. Your brother paints – I’ll hold his ladders.
You can have my poems. The one about this year –
Change it round- it’ll do for Ireland. What happened
To my lift with Casement? Willie, GET ME OUT OF HERE!”

Shopping in Cashel for pulque, Michael Robartes-
“Research Assistant to a popular writer”-
Itched in his Connemara Cloth. Himself well-known
For a Special Devotion to the Virgin of Guadalupe,
He frowned on local talk of a drunken madwoman
In red skirts, publicly disputing with the bishop.