Book Burning

When the wood ran out
we had nothing else to burn
except for the library

of the early and short-lived
Chicano writers who walked on earth
as long as one dinosaur’s tail cell.

Anyway, when the wood ran out
we started burning the library,
the few precious books of Alurista,

Corky, Ricardo Sanchez, Tomas Rivera,
Rudy Anaya, Cecilio Garcia-Camarillo,
Max Martinez, the Black Hat Poet,

and not even the Chicanas were spared,
Carmen Tafolla, Vangie Vigil, Lorna Dee…
and then the fire died out,

it got colder and colder still.
We huddled together, shivering
against the ashes of our past.