There is no sky or earth
in the white van that crosses me over,
nor in the drywall coop painted red
where white men with tattooed arms
stood up and sit down, up and down,
unleashed erections pivoting
and searching for the best angle
to penetrate my forever painful ***.
I am called “pollo”, chicken,
“nuevo carne”, new meat
by the coyote who drove me
and the gringos who maul me,
their millet dollars tossed into hands
waiting unsmiling at the ajar door,
passage paid with my legs,
eggs for pollos not eaten.
Across the hall I hear the cackling
of men orgasming into torn sheets,
a softer clucking than the maras gangs
of Tegucigalpa roosting the food market
and the barrios for ****** violators.
In Honduras anyone can ******
a woman and nothing will happen.
At least, in Texas they bury you.
They promise half of half of half of profits,
less than 50 pesos, dollars on a $50 John.
They dress me in corpse rags that
stink of gasoline and last *******;
feed me grain, maize, rain barrel water.
My nakedness kills fleeing for freedom.
Nobody will risk saving a puta, *****
from a charcoal window stash house.
I dreamed once I could wear silk dresses
or richly sew them together for a small,
life with a good man and brown-eye kids.
The Chinese girl smuggled in from Fuzhou
can aspire to own a nail salon, or work
a massage parlor run by Sister Ping’s heirs.
Biloxi runaways can traffic on NY dreams.
I have only violation and suicide.
I traveled the border crossing between
Tegucigalpa and the American Dream,
enough to forget why I crossed over,
times enough until I wasn’t me anymore,
to pace back and forth, scratch at
and settle in the straw of forgetfulness,
American in I have a heavy debt
that only heaven can release.
