El Paso Dream
Juarez tethers me like a balero
with a bridge instead of string.
I tread Stanton Street’s crammed path
over the nearly waterless Rio Grande.
I could have walked on its dehydrated bed.
Tanned leather’s weathered smell
infuses the mercado’s air.
Piñatas, penuche.
Day of the Dead disguises and candles,
coupled like an afterlife marriage,
entice tourists to a tienda.
Street vendors
make mariachi marionetas dance
— ¡baila, baila! —
like I’ll never be able to.
Still, I hand over my pesos.
Now I possess a tangle of string,
wooden legs, tiny guitar.
I’ll figure it out when I get home … quizás.
I stop at a corner bar for Negra Modelo,
risky time for beer.
La Linea y Los Aztecas, Los Mexicles y Artistas Asesinos —
and a hundred more gangs
whose names I can’t remember —
own the Juarez streets at night.
I’m a gabacho; I must leave.
Windless and weak,
I pant on my bicycle up Scenic Drive
past the painted white “A” on the Franklin Mountains.
Gabriel is with me, Sylvia and Arturo, Melchor y Timo —
but we never come here together.
Now images rapid fire like a cartel’s AR-15s:
Sun Bowl, Sunland Park, Fort Bliss, Chamizal
Texas Western wins it all in ’66.
Nunchucks and knives in the halls of Austin High.
San Jacinto Plaza, alligators in central pond.
(No one knows why gators in a desert town.)
Menudo written on a wall in letters four feet tall.
No need. I can smell it four city blocks back.
My garden of prickly pears, yuccas,
barrel cactus and pampa grass.
I know it’s a dream
Like I know the El Paso I knew
is lost in desert dust:
A winding tumbleweed, thrown by West Texas wind.
Still jumbled.
Still gone.