Of buying his mother a stove.

It is the time of rain. She

Cooks outdoors with firewood.

The housekeeper’s five

Sons have all gone north.

Her favorite won’t phone, and

She can neither read nor write.

Meanwhile, arms drift south

And drugs shift north.

The avocados, beyond the budget

Of the seamstress, rose seller,

Housekeeper, travel north too

This season.

Police. Politicians.

México. United States.

Business always good

Between the two

Nations.

El Hombre

AFTER TAMAYO

On the eve of International Women’s Day

In a field on the road to Celaya

They find her body.

The deaf-mute girl who

Walked her dog in Parque Juárez.

No one tried, blamed, named.

The town knows:

It’s her father’s debts.

This is how they pay

Un hombre who can’t pay.

Mándanos luz. Send us all light.

In small print, in the back

Pages of today’s paper,

I read this small news:

Un Hombre Purépecha

Lifted from His Purépecha Village.

Daily the Purépechas demand his return.

Daily el hombre does not return.

He is only one of the many “lifted.”

When you are native in your native land

To whom do you demand? Who listens?

Mándanos luz. Send us all light.

The bird merchant at the Tuesday mercado,

Six cages of cenzontles strapped on his back,

Shoves a mesh shopping bag so close

To my face, I have to step back to see.

A flutter of frightened canaries.

In the eyes of el hombre,

The same urgency, the same fear.

Mándanos luz. Send us all light.

The gringo Alan tells me the story

Of the pig who thought he was a dog.

Solovino he was called,

Because he came alone.

How each day Alan drove

Along the road to Dolores,

The dogs would run from

The squatter’s shack and give chase,

The pig who thought he was a dog

Trotting behind them.

Until one day the pig isn’t there.

The dogs disappear too.

One by one by one.

Alan shrugs.

When un hombre is hungry,

There is no one to blame.

Mándanos luz. Send us all light.

The “Religion” section of

Our Guanajuato newspaper

Features an article on St. Francis,

Un hombre of austerity, as

A model for all to live in poverty.

This in a country where almost every

Hombre, mujer y niño is already

On the path to sainthood.

Mándanos luz. Send us all light.

How it happened was like this.

One night Rosana catches un hombre

Breaking into her grocery store,

The son of a neighbor.

Her shouts wake the barrio.

They’re able to hold the thief

Until the police arrive.

Rosana is there to bear witness

At the court proceedings. And to

Witness the court set him free.

She gathers her pain in a handkerchief,

Goes home and calls the boy’s mother.

Rosana and the mother of the thief. Each

Woman lets loose a sea of grief.