Castilla la Vieja: arid foothills,
stone houses, skies between violet
and amethyst. Peasants feud
over arable land, even the old Muslim
cemetery--a fertile incline,
soft, rich as marzipan--suffers the plow
as if Santiago’s sword
were disemboweling the infidel.

Across fields of Passion wheat
with gypsy poppies,
farmers stack the uprooted headstones
to build Easter granaries,
their wives plait bones for thatching.

Annus mirabilis--1571--
Philip II’s galleys defeat the Turks
at Lepanto, his brother Don Juan de Austria
quells the last Moriscos
who had fled to the Alpujarras.
Corpus Christi Thursday,
bell towers--once minarets--
fume ash smelling of bacalao.
(Salt conserves the host best.)

Pigs’ feet, blood pudding, chorizos
hang from windows
and niches, anyone abstaining
from pork or taking a bath
is reported to la Santa Inquisición.

Old Christian--pure-blooded Visigoth--
an hidalgo scrubs his face
and armpits with egg whites.
“Only marranos wallow in soapy water.”
Devout to their catechism,
flies swarm on Santiago’s chitterling cincture.

When Christ’s body soots the sunflower,
legend says, an inquisidor
from Burgos transforms yolks to brooches,
a child’s eye to lapus lazuli.