1
Animal rights placards in wave formations.
Youth as mass tribe, post-punk anarchists.
To run into the crowd for that one opening,
protesters, banners aloft,
acquiescing to my need to merge with them.
2
Doctors. Nurses.
Opposite, carabinieros [1] in khaki;
the closest to me, hand on pistol.
An ambulance behind hospital workers;
combat police on motorcycles invade from Moneda,
a water cannon managing a U turn in its narrow lane.
Demonstrators, victims of an encounter with no violence;
it was there, could not be seen, but it was there.
Heavy vehicles linger, as if the marchers
melting away furthers the chants that follow.
A block away, ‘Todo Cambia’ [2] rises above the crowd.
Maybe this was the message,
across thoroughfares; dissent
in streets of relentless shadow.
Notes:
[1] National police, considered part of the military.
[2] ‘Everything Changes’, Mercedes Sosa’s version.
