Photographs hang on a makeshift draped-cloth wall
beside a train station in Buenos Aires.
A woman with blonde hair awry
carefully adjusts the flowers
beside her daughter’s picture.
Other photos receive love notes from family
whose once-singing children
died from ravaging smoke and flame
three weeks before.
Mourners hold pictures and placards outside
as outraged relatives, friends, and the public
gather across from La Plaza de Misere.
We march down La Avenida Corrientes
seething as one against owners and officials
whose lust for profits
consumed these youth in their time of joy.
Nearby a ghost wanders in from ten-thousand years ago.
She died in the years of encroaching ice,
this withered Promethea,
after stealing the secret of fire for all humanity
so we could live through nights without freezing
when breezes cut like steel
or a politician’s smile.
On 30 December 2004, a fire broke out in the crowded República Cromañón nightclub in Buenos Aires, Argentina, killing 194 people and leaving at least 1,492 injured.
