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A Camel in my tea 

Roger Camp

It was scorch your fingers
     hot,
Mexico City’s buses
     boiling

black clouds of diesel along
     Los Insurgentes,
the shaded sidewalk cafe promising
     relief.

Ordering iced tea, savoring that first
     sip,
eyes adrift in its watery amber
     waves.

Spotting a sunken
     shape,
a sodden cylinder
     icebound,

I shook the glass, observing it
     roll
on its back,
     butt

first, a half smoked Camel soused in
     tea,
reminding me of General Obregon’s
     arm,

blown off by Villa’s revolutionary
     cannon,
rotting under glass in yellow
     brine

at the monument to his mythic
     dismemberment.