Imaginary México Poem by Carolyn D. Wright

Naturally there would be frijoles tortillas habaneros and queso

there would be a man sharpening knives on a stationary bike

brass instruments and just this one time the absence of mariachis

narcos would be queued up in shackles hair swirling around

their navels generating a vortex straight to damnation no young

brutalized women no young dispossessed boys going through

the basura at the rusty trombone we would be moving supple

as a moray eel and secretive until borracho and burned

by a careless cigarette then only would our terrifying teeth

be exposed and a yellow taxi pull up to transport us back

to a hotel equipped with showers a thousand and one

times better than the one back home the water no more or less

potable the sins of our forbears transferable into perpetuity