On Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles
Maria struts on high heels, sporting
tight jeans, Frisco T-shirts, oversize
sunglasses, purple nail-polish, tilts her
red Maxfactor lips to the sky, her face
spilling with dreams
She sings along a Mexican song
from a passing car seizing the light
of life “Voy para norte!”
“Para alcanzar me sueno”
Memories shift as vivid as fire
her journey from the blue hills
of the Sierra Madre, Guetamala
to the stretch of potholes along
La Carretera al Pacifico to the border
of Mexico past yawning ravines
of El Espinoza del Diablo all the way
to Los Angeles
Down there …
locked inside a trunk of an old Ford,
hot and airless, she curls like a cat
on a piece of cardboard, endures
the raw heat of summer, count sparks
of light drifting in and out, gasping for
breath holding fast to a single beam
as dreams are flung, killed, in cold and
and starless nights
Out of the trunk on the hill of Matamoros, Tijuana
she heads north, darts in and out of alleys
crossing highways skipping gutters, bridges,
stations of border patrols. outrunning dogs barking
in rage into a house with shut windows
Inside closed doors, quick eyes stare
at her in silence, faces brown as
cinnamon bark, fresh as Amazon mangoes,
bound by one language, one dream, one plan
one destination, a journey of no return.