Ciudad Juárez, Mexico

In this wild city, we are bones
scattered in the valley’s grave. An apron,
a white tennis shoe, a face gone
missing. A mother leans over the dust

scattered in the valley’s grave. An apron
around her waist, on her way to work. The
missing. A mother leans over the dust
and carves her daughter’s initials. Her name

around her waist, on her way to work. The
bones wait to be found; there are always bones. She prays
and carves her daughter’s initials. Her name,
Veronica, and the others, Esmerelda, Barbara, Brenda; our

bones wait to be found; there are always bones. She prays
to the gardens tethered to the field of pink crosses:
Veronica, and the others, Esmerelda, Barbara, Brenda, our
roses, wild poppies, fragile blooms of morning glories,

to the gardens tethered to the field of pink crosses:
the wooden fence marked ¡Justicia!, the desert empty of
roses, wild poppies, fragile blooms of morning glories,
for the women who walk home each night. The unfinished earth.

^{found language from Brideshead Revisited}

When I was seventeen,
ecstasy disguised itself as vice:
juicy, offensive, and easy—

pretty things want to get rough.
an impertinent affair of the heart & more than the heart,
when I was seventeen. 

Tipsy virgins viced their pimples
when I was seventeen,
and transformed pretty things to indecisive cornsilk. 

When I was seventeen I said
I give up, finding no keener pleasure than a dear
or unnatural boys in ecstasy.

My partner, the obscure other,
was very naughty and kind
insatiable as our affairs, 

so I gave up and let myself be offensive—
a juicy piece of impertinence 
when I was seventeen,

wearing coloured tails obscured
by poppies, hearts, and deers:
no thing could give me keener pleasure.

Come back! I’ll be keenly offensive!
whispered, when I was seventeen
and transformed the popping juice of pleasure.

With meaty boys, a juicy little piece 
of vice, when I was seventeen.
And with others? Pleasure. Hullabaloo. Ecstasy. 

The heart’s juicy poppy,
its rough pimples, its kindness—blasphemous.
I gave up more than my heart.

They have torn the gold tettinx
From my hair;
And wrenched the bronze sandals
From my ankles.

They have taken from me my friend
Who knew the holy wisdom of poets,
Who had drunk at the feast
Where Simonides sang.

No more do I walk the calm gardens
In the white mist of olives;
No more do I take the rose-crown
From the white hands of a maiden.

I, who was free, am a slave;
The Muses have forgotten me,
The gods do not hear me.

Here there are no flowers to love;
But afar off I dream that I see
Bent poppies and the deathless asphodel. 

This is a quiet grave. In is not made of myths, of great barbarous fish, of coral, 
or salt. No one submerges himself with metal and rubber, no one shines her 
white light along the floor. Search parties have been suspended. There is no 
treasure buried here. This is the place of what-is-not. Of a green so green those 
flying above it would call it blue. Of a black so black it glows. This is a world 
with its own species of ghosts--plankton drifting inside her, the barnacles nesting 
on her hips, her wrists, their whole beings mouths frozen in horror. Sound 
turned into silence--like cloth on the floor is the shed skin of the lover. Like 
sheets bereft of the shapes that slept. Once upon a time she was all escape--her 
long hair, siren of copper and cinnamon, burning a comet behind her. Her long 
legs that loved heels and short skirts, that craved the hard slap of the city 
beneath her. You would have read this girl. You both wanted more. But she 
doesn’t remember how she got here, in this bed that consumed her. Why she 
can’t put her lipstick on, why one would press color like a promise to the lips. It 
must have begun with red. But the beginning of this story is lost to the water, 
you could rake its bottom of leaves and sticks like tea, you could spear one of its 
last trout and study the slick pages of its intestine. The girl is leagues and leagues 
away from the first kiss of prologue, but she, throat caked with mud, white skin 
scaled verdigris, must be the message within the bottle. Words grow in her 
belly. It doesn’t matter who put them there. If they are the children of plankton,
descendants of eels and pond scum. They come to her as twins, triplets, and 
septuplets, whole alphabets swimming inside her. Each one is a bubble, a bread 
crumb, a rung to climb to the top. And as she ascends she names them with 
names cradled inside her. Her feet kick and her arms clutch. Her body strong 
and slippery, a great tongue that propels her: A is for apple, B is for bone, for 
boat, C is for candle, for cunt, for cut.