1 Poem by
David Chorlton
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San Cristobal Valley
"It's one of the most terrible deaths that can occur to a human being," said Johnny Williams, western regional director for INS. He said by the end, the victims become disoriented and delusional, often turning around in circles."
Arizona Republic
May 24th, 2001
With a drop of sunlight in a bottle
and a map of the desert on his cuff
one man keeps walking through the wall
the heat has built, leaving his sweat behind him
for the next in line
who follows with the salt from his body
sparkling. Drinking by memory
they take directions from the needles
on the barrel cactus
leaning north. A plume of vultures spirals
into the dizzy sky, a torn shirt hangs
on a mesquite branch, and a shadow walks away
to lie down and wait
for the body that cast it
to catch up. A fourth man crawls
until his fingers turn
into centipedes
and go on without him. The fifth
blows a prayer into his handkerchief
and wrings it dry
while a dove?s murmur
ripples in his ear
as if it were a stream. One breath is all
that remains of the sixth man, rising
on a stalk from his tongue.
This country has no night,
the seventh calls to the eighth,
who calls for the coyote
to step out from between the organ pipe ribs,
but only a dust devil comes
with its wandering roots
and a hand
pointing both ways. Climbing the mercury
the eighth man turns to steam
and the ninth
becomes a moth and when he flies
the red on the underside of his wings
flashes a warning to the tenth.
The eleventh hides in his shoes
with the scorpion,
the twelfth
drips between the stones
he mistook for water,
the thirteenth has a thorn in each eye,
and when the last of all
spits a spider
from the web in his mouth
it finds a way back
to start weaving again
in the crater on his cheek.
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