Eating Soup in Bogotá

Across the table
he dishes up split pea bisque
from an aluminum tureen
and tears open a piece of bread.
I had to go down to the police
to identify her.
They had
this piece of torso,
a kind of
with the soup spoon
he draws a square above his bowl
chunk of body.
No arms, head or legs,
just this
the spoon
plops back into his bowl
it was
well
ugly.
I had
never seen
anything
quite like that.
We nod
and concentrate
on our soup.
Neighbors told me she was pregnant.
Said the fetus was hung on a door.
The father shot a dozen times.
Hard thing to do
identify her, I mean.
They raised coca,
for the guerrillas, supposedly.
Then switched when the paras came,
so they could stay in their little house.
After a couple of months
I guess their new patrones
decided they were not of much use.
At their funeral
I was not sure,
sabes,
what blessing
The Priest stops flat
like the spoon in his cold soup.

Bogotá, Colombia