The Albacete knives, magnificent
with stranger-blood,
flash like fishes
on the gully slope.
Light crisp as a playing
card snips out of bitter
green the profiles of riders
and maddened horses,
The old women in an olive
tree are sobbing.
The bull of the quarrel
is rising up the walls.
Black angels arrived
with handkerchiefs and snow water.
Angels with immense wings
like Albacete knives.
Juan Antonio from Montilla
rolls dead down the hill, 
his body covered with lilies,
a pomengranate on his temples.
He is climbing now on the cross of fire,
the highway of death.

The State Police and the judge
come along through the olive grove.
From the earth loosed blood moans
the silent folksong of the snake.
"Well, your honor, you see,
it's the same old business -- 
four Romans are dead
and five Carthaginians."

Dusk that the fig trees and the
hot whispers have made hysterical
faints and falls on the bloody
thighs of the riders, 
and black angels went on flying
through the falling light,
angels with long hair
and hearts of olive-oil.