DRUG WARS: FOUR POEMS
Grim Guests
Taos, 1968
a certain country house
overlooks the sun scorched desert.
It is wonderfully cool inside,
with beautiful floors of sienna tiles
and expensive minimalist furnishings.
To this house comes a black sedan
covered in thick yellow dust from
across the southern border.
Five men emerge bearing suitcases,
four of them are the color of the tiles.
They wear sunglasses,
guns holstered inside suits.
The pale one with yellow hair
speaks English and sits
at the head of the table.
The bong is lit,
the flavor of the day
is Acapulco Gold,
but the bargain
is for snow.
A deal goes down,
in a special language familiar
to all gathered.
No names mentioned,
no questions asked.
The child of the hosts
is not permitted in the room,
but he can smell and hear
what is going on.
Years later, as a top agent
for a pharmaceutical company,
he makes drug deals
less intense, highly profitable;
often deadly, totally legal.
Carrots and Sticks
A boy named Santos knows
how to plant carrots and sticks
to fool the men in green uniforms.
The real plunder is deep in a nature preserve
where fumigation cannot touch its precious bounty
and no government nor Medellin cartel
will choke his livelihood.
Once there were promises
of help for farmers if they
raised legal crops in place of coca.
But when the farmers did as asked,
and planted cane and corn
no help ever came
Mornings Santos plucks a leaf,
chews and dreams of fortune.
He is a grown man now.
He is no fool.
Heavy Weather
Maria lives in Nuevo Laredo.
She awakes early to get her son
dressed and off to preschool.
She checks her social media feed
for news of the latest murder.
Always, there is the weather to think of.
It doesn’t rain water there, it rains lead,
viper kisses any time of day or night,
far from the rainforest,
yet a jungle all the same.
It is part of Maria’s life,
part of her little boy’s life;
he will accept it as she has,
this life in the civilized wild,
it is the way things are.
Prison
It wasn’t a big deal,
maybe just some lids—
rent money, whatever,
you knew people,
they knew people.
You didn’t expect to be caught
selling those baggies, but you were.
There was more afterwards,
like your mom crying and your dad
not meeting your eyes, not talking.
You didn’t expect to be stripped
and sprayed and shoved into a cell
with a guy built like the Terminator
and what he did to you later,
he and his friends.
You never were into sports,
but you learned how it felt
to entertain the team,
dancing at half time
naked in the stark lights,
one fucked up mascot
for two years.
When they let you out,
pointed you to the gate,
pride in shreds, broken—
none of it made sense.
It was only weed, man,
only fucking weed.