MOTECUHZOMA
            My torch that does not smoke, your will be done.
            We’ll, with a clean-slate log, draft dignity.
            Yet what events may come to canonize?
            The wider our domain has stretched her range,
            The weaker our elastic hold becomes,
            As one half of our empire is employed
            With forceps to extract the other half.
            Our reign superimposes all the earth
            From the volcanic groves of Mayaland
            Up to the shifting wastelands of the North.
            But there is one last nest of brigandry,
            A murky pocket glowering in the east:
            That vile Tlaxcala, left to roam at large,
            And, as a single bed flea spoils my sleep,
            So does this fractious county drain my humor.
            Brother- What pesticide must flush these flies?

CUITLAHUAC
            We have the force to raze those traitors down,
            And what we might attempt, our might must crown.
            Our fertile empire rounds their toxic realm
            As healthy flesh imprisons cancerous rot;
            If eagles nursed a stranger’s egg to find
            Their warm embrace has thawed a rattling asp.
            We once did stalk Tlaxcalans for our sport,
            And prize their trophied hides like ten-point bucks.
            But these stray pups have hardened to coyotes,
            On crouching haunches, like a nightmare, hunched
            Upon a flowerlike land that should support
            A million civilized and happy men.
            Their population’s health should be no more
            Than called for by an enterprising nation
            For water-drawers and hewers of our wood.
            Let’s pinch this pest we coddle at our breast,
            And clip these hatchlings’ wings while in the nest.

MOTECUHZOMA
            So should we compromise our Mexico,
            By thus unpopulating her of men.
            What says our loving minister of war?
            Speak, Tlacaelel, and pronounce their doom.