Naturally there would be frijoles tortillas habaneros and queso
there would be a man sharpening knives on a stationary bike
brass instruments and just this one time the absence of mariachis
narcos would be queued up in shackles hair swirling around
their navels generating a vortex straight to damnation no young
brutalized women no young dispossessed boys going through
the basura at the rusty trombone we would be moving supple
as a moray eel and secretive until borracho and burned
by a careless cigarette then only would our terrifying teeth
be exposed and a yellow taxi pull up to transport us back
to a hotel equipped with showers a thousand and one
times better than the one back home the water no more or less
potable the sins of our forbears transferable into perpetuity
Copyright © by C. D. Wright. Used with the permission of the author.