Secrets in the Sand [And the night was a precipice]

And the night was a precipice,
And the night was a hollow sound,
Beyond all depths and silences.
It was night in the city of Juárez and the dead women of Juárez
Protected the living ones.
It didn’t seem like a typical night at the border.
It seemed more like the drowsiness of a mute inferno
And flames transforming into knives.

Night in Juárez was a perverse mirror
Where death breathed its hollow
Trophies over the sand.

And night in the city of Juárez didn’t have a beginning or an end
Just fear
Just death.

Copyright © 2006 by Marjorie Agosìn. From Secrets in the Sand. Reprinted with permission of White Pine Press.