It haunts me. Desert hollowed by tombs, sun scorching sunken bones, Ancient sediment saturated with broken dreams, burning desires Littered over rocks, infinitely piling, ever-reaching, So that even the thundering mountains feel threatened. 

I imagine it haunted them as well, Short goodbyes for an infinite forever weighing their backs As they trekked the lonely terrain. I wonder if they heard the coyotes’ cries, Shrill, piercing, Heard the sirens’ screeching. Shouts calling for their detainment: Wild wanderers unwelcome. 

Some made it, some didn’t. Some paid life savings to a thief, For a way to the Promised Land. Some paid with their life, Fingers grasping, reaching Across watery banks, the Rio Grande’s Cold fingers lapping around their throats, dragging them to its depths. 

Girl with Aztec skin, tongue parched And tired eyes dilated, last words Asking Mami for a drink. It haunts me to think her death was the cost For a foreign land, a safe haven drenched In opportunity, blanketed in peace. But stripped, it’s guarded by bigotry, False promises as false as its pity. 

This land scares me the most, a land That welcomes the vulnerable, protecting them In thin aluminum sheets and cages. Their faces, valued only as statistics, stare at me in the night. I stare back And imagine I can hear their cries Coming from the desert graveyard.

Monse Juarez