{Widow number 8 sings}
1
He crawls like a tree branch, on the wet surface. Transpires one brimstone. Water crystals in the snout.
2
He is looking for food. Leftovers of smell which are rope, which are memory. The life of a town, in front of the candle and the portrait on the chest of drawers.
3
The helmet hangs in the gnawed wardrobe. I cry, because I think of you trapped. Deafened.
4
600º C wave. Expansion. 2.5 kilometers. Asphyxia. You. Kneeled. You carry the shovel. The light bulb blinks. Black hands.
5
The hen broth and the beans await. Unburied. The table is in mourning. I bury the crossed knives so that the wind carries the rain away.
6
Saponified. Sunken. Useless. Lumps to order that should have been forgotten. Insomniac heat. 2:30 am.
7
Helicopter vultures. They sentenced the faceless children to death. Viscous event that didn’t perechó2.
8
In the middle of the night, I wake up, startled by your nightmares. Dreams I beg. Shreds.
9
Slitted tights, and all around, women thread a tableau of prayers. Blankets on guard. 10 Fenced by demolition. Area of risk. Miner 4, miner 2, second entrance, reported concentration. The pulleys remain dirty.
11
Gray smoke, gray mortality. Gray cloudy rails. We remember them, when a country buried them without a corpse.
12
Generation after generation, the grandfathers harvested metals, while the unions soaped their skins with calabash.
13
Miners or soldiers of a war in sepia. Empty alcohol under their arms. From their canteens, they licked seconds.
14
Frozen busboys of the earth. Worth less than beasts. February 19, 2006. 6:00 am.
15
The air wouldn’t be. Stop breathing. Survive. Epitaphs for the missing. Gante in his funeral. Wheat for the widows.
16
100 Orphans. And the anguish that silences nothing. Blue helmets. And they wonder, where are the widows? Three years later.
17
When a fire presses, again, against our breast, nothing quiets. For you, the live ones, the 65.
18
4:14 am. I get up just to boil water for you, only to return to your ciénaga3 arms.
19
But that dying dog dragging itself by the tail, but this silence, but these stained sheets scuff the scar.
20
And, at a sinister hour of dawn, I ask myself, when will you find my end? No more stones. Bones.
21
The Fates seal willow kisses, to raise them from the dead, wrapped in looks and white petals.
22
They pronounce their names, among Sabinas and stars, on St. John’s Day: Javier Perez Aguilar, Amado Rosales Hernandez, Jesus Morales Boone, and 62 miners more.
23
The voice is the end of the rope.
COLLECTIVE EPITAPH
✝ Javier Pérez Aguilar ✝ Amado Rosales Hernández ✝ Jesús Morales Boone ✝ Lauro Olacio Zarazu ✝ Jesús Cortez Ibarra ✝ Tomás Patlán Martínez ✝ Fermín Tavares Garza ✝ Juan Antonio Cruz García ✝ Juan Ramón Barrientos Gloria ✝ Jesús Armando Rodríguez Torres ✝ José Guadalupe García Mercado ✝ Guillermo Iglesias Ramos ✝ Adrián Barboza Álvarez ✝ José Luis Calvillo Hernández ✝ Óscar Javier Cerda Espinoza ✝ José Ángel Guzmán Franco ✝ Roberto Zapata González ✝ Jesús Alberto de León Camarillo ✝ Mario Alberto Ruiz Ramos ✝ Pedro Doñez Posada ✝ Ricardo Hernández Rocha ✝ Jorge Bladimir Muñoz Delgado ✝ Juan Fernando García Martínez ✝ Hugo Ramírez García ✝ Juan Arturo Salazar Olvera ✝ Juan Antonio Cárdenas Limán ✝ Feliciano Vázquez Posada ✝ Gil Rico Montelongo ✝ Rolando Alcocer Soria ✝ Roberto Guerrero Ramírez ✝ Ignacio Hernández López ✝ Jorge Antonio Moreno Tovar ✝ Jesús Álvarez Flota ✝ Juan Manuel Rosas Hernández ✝ Agustín Botello Hernández ✝ Ignacio Campos Rosales ✝ José Alfredo Ordóñez Martínez ✝ Margarito Zamarron Alfaro ✝ Gilberto Ríos Salazar ✝ José Armando Castillo Moreno ✝ Isidoro Briseño Ríos ✝ Felipe de Jesús Torres Reyna ✝ Pablo Soto Nieto ✝ Margarito Cruz Ríos ✝ Raúl Villasana Cantú ✝ Eliud Valero Valero ✝ Guillermo Ortiz Mora ✝ Juan Martín Gómez Martínez ✝ Mauro Antonio Sánchez Rocha ✝ Reyes Cuevas Silva ✝ José Manuel Peña Saucedo ✝ Jesús Viera Armendáriz ✝ José Eduardo Martínez Baltasar ✝ Gregorio Rangel Ocura ✝ Julián Martínez Ojeda ✝ Ernesto de la Cruz Sánchez ✝ Mario de Jesús Cordero Arévalo ✝ José Porfirio Cibrián Mendoza ✝ José Ramón Hernández Ramos ✝ Juan Raúl Arteaga García ✝ Luis Jorge de Hoyos Márquez ✝ José Alfredo Silva Contreras ✝ Jorge Arturo Ortega Jiménez ✝ Arturo García Díaz ✝ José Isabel Mijares Yáñez
Dance Poems 