By Natalie Scenters-Zapico
1
Part of the simulation is not knowing
your coyote’s real name. Part of the simulation
is knowing your group could leave you
behind. Part of the simulation is knowing
that if you are left behind, a pickup truck
will take you back to your hotel.
2
Through caves, through brush, through needles
we form a line by holding on
to a stranger’s backpack. In the dark live
rounds are fired. I duck, people laugh.
3
The desert here is no desert at all & I think of how
I could cut a thick barrel cactus open
& eat it. In Chihuahua I’ve never seen
thick barrel cactus, only the thin long threads
of ocotillo that don’t carry much water.
4
The chairos pay 250 pesos to walk
all night in the desert in the middle of México
to simulate a border crossing. They bring jugs
filled with water & pose for selfies.
5
When you wade across the river you only have to worry
about swimming if a current pulls you under, not the red
glare of night-vision goggles, floodlights & guns.
6
In the simulation, only two people make it
to the other side without getting stopped by actors
portraying la migra or narcos. All are brought back
for cups of atole. It’s three in the morning, a girl laughs.
7
I walk back to my room, turn on the light
& the flying ants won’t stop swarming. It is so dark
& have so much water left in my jug.
My teeth full of grit from the atole.
Natalie Scenters-Zapico, "Ixniquilpan, Hidalgo, México" from Lima :: Limón. Copyright © 2019 by Natalie Scenters-Zapico. Reprinted by permission of Copper Canyon Press, www.coppercanyonpress.org.
Source: Lima :: Limón (2019)
Poet Bio
More Poems about Activities
We Play Charades
My first instinct is to translate
the word. Make it easier to understand
without saying the word itself.
I feel guilt for this mistake—
for changing languages instead
of describing. Isn’t this an easy way out?
My mother and I are playing charades
alone. We make this...
Here’s an Ocean Tale
My brother still bites his nails to the quick,
but lately he’s been allowing them to grow.
So much hurt is forgotten with the horizon
as backdrop. It comes down to simple math.
The beach belongs to none of us, regardless
of color, or money....
More Poems about Social Commentaries
From the Sky
When I die,
bury me in the sky—
no one is fighting over it.
Children are playing soccer
with empty bomb shells
(from the sky I can see them).
A grandmother is baking
her Eid makroota and mamoul
(from the sky I can taste them).
Teens are writing love...
Poem with Human Intelligence
This century is younger than me.
It dresses itself
in an overlong coat of Enlightenment thinking
despite the disappearing winter.
It twirls the light-up fidget spinner
won from the carnival of oil economies.
In this century, chatbots write poems
where starlings wander from their murmuration
into the denim-thick...