running
on the flat desert land,
racing with the shadows
from the fast-moving
clouds, the hills behind me,
somewhere out of town in
zacatecas, mexico, leaping
over fresh rain puddles.
i remember stumbling
and falling into a puddle,
orange and stinking
like piss, and seeing
a dead horse in front of
it – the bone almost
protruding through the thin,
dead skin, still leaking
blood into the yellow piss
puddles, turning them a muddy
orange. running, panicking,
racing back in instant and
unthinking terror to the
ranch where my aunts ask if
i’m ok, what happen,
que paso, que paso,
but i was embarrassed and
my spanish wasn’t good
enough for me to explain, to
articulate what i saw,
what just happened:
that i was a coward
in the face of death.
on the flat desert land,
racing with the shadows
from the fast-moving
clouds, the hills behind me,
somewhere out of town in
zacatecas, mexico, leaping
over fresh rain puddles.
i remember stumbling
and falling into a puddle,
orange and stinking
like piss, and seeing
a dead horse in front of
it – the bone almost
protruding through the thin,
dead skin, still leaking
blood into the yellow piss
puddles, turning them a muddy
orange. running, panicking,
racing back in instant and
unthinking terror to the
ranch where my aunts ask if
i’m ok, what happen,
que paso, que paso,
but i was embarrassed and
my spanish wasn’t good
enough for me to explain, to
articulate what i saw,
what just happened:
that i was a coward
in the face of death.
Running in Zacatecas
| Luis Rivas |
Photo--
"Landscape, Northeast Utah"
Vachon, John, 1914-1975, photographer.
Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division,
FSA-OWI Collection, [reproduction number,
LC-DIG-fsac-1a34285]
"Landscape, Northeast Utah"
Vachon, John, 1914-1975, photographer.
Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division,
FSA-OWI Collection, [reproduction number,
LC-DIG-fsac-1a34285]