Dice Are Rolling / Eva’s Sonnet

[PERÓN]
Dice are rolling, the knives are out
Would-be presidents are all around
I don't say they mean harm but they’d each give an arm
To see us six feet underground

[EVA]
But we still have the magic we've always had!
The descamisados still worship me
We arrived thanks to them and no one else
No thanks to your generals—a clutch of stuffed cuckoos!

[PERÓN]
It's not a question of a big parade
Proving we’re big with the mobs on the street
Our problems are closer than that
They'rе along the corridor

[EVA]
You're wrong—the pеople, my people—

[PERÓN]
The people belong to no one!
They are fickle, can be manipulated!
Controllable, changeable
In the end the people don't matter—
However much they love you now
It matters more that as far as my stuffed cuckoos are concerned
You don't officially or politically exist!

[EVA]
So I don't exist!
So I count for nothing!
Try saying that on the street
When all over the world
I am Argentina!
Most of your generals
Wouldn't be recognized by their own mothers!
But they'll admit I exist when I become vice-president!

[PERÓN]
That won’t work
We’ve been through all of this before
They'd fight any attempt to make you vice-president
Tooth and nail
You’d never overcome that sort of opposition
With a hundred rallies
And even if you did—

[EVA]
Yes?

[PERÓN]
Your little body's slowly breaking down
You're losing speed, you're losing strength
Not style, that goes on flourishing forever
But your eyes, your smile
Do not have the sparkle of your fantastic past
If you climb one more mountain it could be your last

[EVA]
I’m not that ill
Bad moments come but they go
Some days are fine, some a little bit harder
But I'm no has-been
It's the same old routine
Have you ever seen
Me defeated?
Don't you forget what I've been through and yet
I'm still standing
And if I am ill—it could even be to your advantage!

[PERÓN]
This is not a case of a sympathetic word in the gossip column
Because you've got a cold!
I'm trying to point out that you might die!

This talk of death is chilling, an assault—
Upon ourselves and it will be our fault
If we allow
These morbid septic thoughts
To rule us now
To bring our reason clattering to a halt
I do not need a final sacrifice
Just let me know of any sane device
To shift your strength, your undisputed powers
To places where your mighty deeds
Your golden words
Have not so far cut too much ice

[EVA]
Then I must now be vice-president!

Those shallow mean pretenders to your throne
Will come to learn ours is the upper hand
For I do not accept this is not known
In rich established parcels of our land
To face the storms so long and not capsize
Is not the chance achievement of a fraud
Conservatives are kings of compromise
It hurts them more to jeer than to applaud

And I shall have my people come to choose
The couple who shall wear their country's crowns
In thousands in my squares and avenues
Emptying their villages and towns
Where every soul in home or shack or stall
Knows me as Argentina—that is all

O I shall be a great vice-president!
This is not a gambler's final throw
Forced upon me by those bastards who've
Only longed to see me up and go
It's not an unprepared or panicked move
Which just goes to prove
I'd be good for you
Eva vice-president is good for you