Plaza San Jacinto, this cozy place
by Alex Cigale
[ poetry - august 08 ]
with a grisly history. In 1847,
50 Irish-American soldiers who sided
with the Mexicans in the Mexican-
American War, having their foreheads
branded with the letter D for "deserter,"
were made to swing by the Americans.
They met their end when the stars and stripes flew
over Chapultepec Castle. In the plaza
a memorial plaque listing their names
expresses Mexico's gratitude for "help
against the unjust American invasion"
and a ceremony is conducted in their
honor each September. Off to one side
of the plaza an excellent handcrafts
market is held on Saturdays. Here you'll
find "the caviar of Mexico" so-called
for both its deliciousness and costliness-
REAL ANT ROE 97% protein-
chillied cactus worms, crispy grasshoppers,
quail eggs on a bed of corn fungus in
squash blossom sauce. As a child crippled
by polio; several years later
impaled on a tramway rail; countless
operations including the amputation
of a leg; addicted to painkillers;
had affairs with Leon Trotsky; also
with several women; married Diego
Rivera twice; Frida Kahlo's become
quite a cult figure. Get a visceral
impression of this early feminist,
visit the museum. An anonymous
forbidding fortress with turrets for guards
where Leon Trotsky lived and was murdered.
Modest austere dwelling. Anyone taller
then five feet must stoop to pass through into
Trotsky's bedroom (with bullet holes in the
walls from the first assassination attempt;
the muralist Siqueiros was implicated,)
his wife's study, the dining room, the study
where Ramon Mercader drove an ice ax
into Trotsky's head (on his cluttered
desk the calendar is open to August
20th, 1940). The volunteers
will tell you how Trotsky's teeth left a scar
on Mercader's hand, how he clung to life
for 26 hours, what his last words were,
how his death was sponsored by the U.S.
Not all volunteers speak English however.
