Northern Triangle Dissected
Central America is a region of great importance to the United States. And it is so close: San Salvador is closer to Houston, Texas than Houston is to Washington, DC.
—Ronald Reagan
País mío no existes.
—Roque Dalton
1
I’m not sorry, not at all,
for the highway I’ve taken,
rapacious, moldering,
hollow husk of a highway.
My destination deemed
perfect, where everybody
collides, so says the law,
whether I’m a criminal
or not, the math doesn’t add up
to exchange a few nothings
for a heaven I’ve never seen,
always heard of, right?
No maps nor numbers,
no possible word written
or spoken to keep you
from thinking I’m putting
a dent in your narrow
pockets. This is how
I do it, while the bald
mountains arch their backs,
darkness coming in fast,
something to chew
while my body rots.
2
You come in like the Spanish flu
ravaging the blossoms’ water supply.
Our rejection out of old rage begins
as if a mayflower found itself
unanchored, a searing crucible
with no return. The story you claim
disturbing and enchanting,
such a rotten thing. May you find
your whole way back
through the black dogs of gunfire,
harken back to the sounds
of your native flowers. Chances are
if you fall, you’ll disappear
or pass. Yet like a hawk
I will coin myself vigilant, dig you out
before your weeds, blackening,
spawn your way of life. Our bodies
settled here first.
3
If there’s no body left, there’s no crime,
no court case, so bury the filthy bastard.
Don’t fuss about it. It’s just a quick blow,
down he goes. You see the brains
unclogged like leafed rainwater
in the gutters. My bag. My haunt of flies.
Thinking of nothing will make nothing
happen, so nothing will
do precisely. Nothing.
4
Here by the northern peak, they cut
the chine of another country, blue
pre-dawn, darkened highway, and then nothing
or everything like roadkill.
Another checkpoint, and whatever
they carry speaks of cadavers—
all those vanishings
by whatever means necessary—
not our Eden, crushed forest
of mangled trees and brush
brushed aside, not you asleep
as if beneath the fields.
5
The sun foaming with too much hissing
mirrors the indifference of scrub,
mountain gut, scorching haze
as they snake through thorns,
vanish through trees and, on the rocks,
settle like dust.
With light sleep,
with music and argot unheard,
merely behaving on instinct, they
puncture their countries, not knowing
what it means, and why would they,
after all they were taught to eat
everything, including the roaches.
6
I must tell you the truth,
sometimes I want nothing more
than the continent capsized; north
down there, south the top of the head,
between you & me not a line,
no scrape of rust clogging
the mind. Who’s to say? Me,
the dark design
of a collarbone.
Of a country and without a country.
You, total gratification
for the ants congregating
down the carcass.
How small
the countries of our bodies.
A polygon
as old as you started this.
It’s hard to grasp the God-awful hunger
of those who don’t see it, don’t need it,
rather bury it, the body
as the greatest instrument.
7
A match light like a bold,
faded gold leaf falling
in a painting. There
in the back streets
failing once again to form
a lucid thought. That’s
the only way to carry out
before you tread, watch
the landscape change.
How else is it possible
to obliterate one’s country.
Not completely, just enough
to feel dead or almost
in the flesh. How once
you rose on the other side
only to hear a shout babble
a language you didn’t know;
words you knew lost their worth.
The roof of your mouth ossified,
tongue only the space it used
to take. At ease with dark.
At ease with your reflection
blurred in public restrooms.
That’s the only way to go.
No grasp of what it is like
to leave without wanting
to come back, to leave
without all you know, all you are,
as if the doctor has cut a wedge
out of the brain. It’s getting here
that makes it difficult to ignore,
the flicker of a thought
discarded like a cigarette.
8
You heard this before,
country of volcanoes
and lakes, country of
I break your ass, I pry
you open with rocks,
out of ravines, out of
tangled hills of my mind,
without a guide on all
fours I walk. Illegitimate
country of legs and arms,
in a way a rosary I have
nothing to say, nothing
to add, except I’m ashamed
I lost it. Country of piece-
of-shit Coca-Cola, torso
and head, I piece you
like a forsaken blanket,
over the shoulder, how
does one forget such
weight, how does leaving
mean much more than
returning. I want to say
a voice well-crafted
and resurrected said
you don’t exist. I think
I know what he meant.
Country that is no
country, crevice so far
and so close to—
here is the thing. Maybe
I’ll never get there, but
when I do, no doubt
I’ll look back, thinking
someone is following.
Source: Poetry (October 2019)