Made shadows by a dusty yellow
The beer bottles
shattering on the floor,
the cigarette smoke
seeping into their rags,
What is it exactly that
Perhaps they flee from
the father who set
their mother on fire;
perhaps they flee from

the man in green
My headlights barely
Driving forward
I leave the faded blue house
Where the tick, tick, tick
signaled the march of ants,
where claws picked up crumbs
and antennas sifted through
rotten fruit.
My foot
I should stop,
call my parents,
Her sleepy voice
saying hello, hello,
to the dirty mouthpiece.
But I keep driving,
look up at the sky
undulating in its silence.
There I see myself
a child sleeping under
a car, longing for the shore
Shhhhhhhh
recede to the
dark blue.
My hands grip the wheel.
Minutes, hours pass
drifting from lane to lane,
The car has stopped
I wander along the road.
My feet press against the asphalt,
bleed onto the street.
In the dark, my blood
I see a yellow shell.
Open 24 hours,
$2.68 for regular.
The heavy stench of gasoline
burns my nostrils. The old man’s
rocking chair waits in the front.
The flies buzz in the outhouse.
The lights are off.
Ave Maria madre de Dios
Reza por nosotros pecadores
My mother kneels at a distance,
candle lit in front of her.
Its flickering writes the prayer
Before I can
say a word she is engulfed
in a blue flame.
I witness her
Melting into monkeys,
swans, dogs…
I wake
heat pressing against
my body. The steering wheel
The man in green knocks
On my window asking
Me to Step out of the car sir.
The desert crossed, the memory
incinerated, the life stamped
PROHIBIDO**
What is that we
*Our mother who art in heaven, pray for us sinners.
**prohibited