on this side of the desert
raul & i drive by a yellow sign that reads cuidado–no exponga su vida a los elementos–no vale la pena. we pass a mountain where, tucked away in a place that the relentless sun cannot reach, the direction & miles left to the border are scratched into a boulder. raul tells me that yesterday, under a creosote, he found a knapsack holding only a light bulb & a battered bible. the body was nearby, so far from god. the legs consumed by cramps. the skin wrung of its sweat. all the water escaping the body to try & keep it cool. the clothes stitched onto his skin by the sun. last night’s full moon a final eucharist his mouth could not reach. he had a name, santos. he also had a wife. or maybe it was a mother, or a sister, or a daughter. the wallet didn’t say. we stop at a white crucifix staked into the ground where there are no roads & leave twelve bottles of water & twelve pears. raul tells me that he once found an entire skeleton in torn clothes, the sneakers still tied to its feet. on our way back to the orto lado a flash flood rushes across the road in front us. we stop, step out, & face it. we leave the truck running, the speakers aching y volver volver. sweat collects at the base of the gold crucifix necklace underneath my shirt. the rains are short but so heavy, i say. right raul? nests of gila woodpeckers poke their heads out of a saguaro. i look at their curious eyes. raul, i say & the saguaro blooms. i stare back at the flood. i say my mother’s name, cristina, & desert marigolds crack through a boulder. i say my father’s name, martin, & all the novena candles in the bed of the truck are aglow. i say santos & in a pair of footprints in the sand a man is built up from the part of his body that touched this earth most. i say the names