The Colonel by Carolyn Forche

The Colonel is a prose poem: a poem that isn't broken up into lines. You're probably thinking, "doesn't that just make it a story?" Well, sort of. The line between a prose poem and a very short story is pretty much negligible, but, in general, a prose poem should exhibit the characteristics of poetry more strongly than prose does. For example, it may be thematically structured like a poem, it may be more musical, and it may pay more attention to imagery and metaphor.

This is one of a series of poems about Forche's experience working for Amnesty International in El Salvador in the late 70's. You can read these in her book The Country Between Us.



The Colonel

What you have heard is true. I was in his house. His wife carried a tray of coffee and sugar. His daughter filed her nails, his son went out for the night. There were daily papers, pet dogs, a pistolon the cushion beside him. The moon swung bare on its black cord over the house. On the television was a cop show. It was in English. Broken bottles were embedded in the walls around the house to scoop the kneecaps from a man's legs or cut his hands to lace. On the windows there were gratings like those in liquor stores. We had dinner, rack of lamb, good wine, a gold bell was on the table for calling the maid. The maid brought green mangoes, salt, a type of bread. I was asked how I enjoyed the country. There was a brief commercial in Spanish. His wife took everything away. There was some talk of how difficult it had become to govern. The parrot said hello on the terrace. The colonel told it to shut up, and pushed himself from the table. My friend said to me with his eyes: say nothing. The colonel returned with a sack used to bring groceries home. He spilled many human ears on the table. They were like dried peach halves. There is no other way to say this. He took one of them in his hands, shook it in our faces, dropped it into a water glass. It came alive there. I am tired of fooling around he said. As for the rights of anyone, tell your people they can go fuck themselves. He swept the ears to the floor with his arm and held the last of his wine in the air. Something for your poetry, no? he said. Some of the ears on the floor caught this scrap of his voice. Some of the ears on the floor were pressed to the ground.





Carolyn Forché was born in Detroit, Michigan, in 1950, and is the author of four books of poetry. She teaches in the MFA Program at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia.