Tepeyac

In the lacunar hush of a 1917 ocean turned mass grave, a nameless torpedo cleaves the hull of a steamer bearing Arroyo Carrillo—youthful diplomat, secular pilgrim—toward Europe’s carnivorous trenches; the Atlantic drinks his itinerary, Mexico drinks the myth of his death. Back in volcanic light, Lupita—eyes obsidian, voice a candle’s flicker—clutches a telegram that smells of gunpowder and salt, then kneels beneath the ochre mantle of La Morenita del Tepeyac, patroness stamped on maize-leaf hearts since 1531. Between fevered novenas and the brittle pages of a hagiographic pamphlet, she slips into a dream thick with maguey sap and jacaranda pollen: Juan Diego’s tilma blooming roses in winter, Castilian choirs drowning beneath Náhuatl vowels, a brown-skinned Madonna whispering, ‘I am your merciful mother, not your widow-maker.’ Dawn’s copper gash rewrites the telegram: the ship listed, yes, but Carrillo clung to driftwood, lungs blistered, faith unmoored, now homing toward Veracruz like a swallow stitched to magnetized air. The lovers reunite beneath the basilica’s baroque gold, soles worn thin by contrition, voices hoarse with gratitude; they leave marigolds and a sailor’s salt-stained glove at the altar, while bells—hungry bronze mouths—swallow the horizon whole.