'What He Crosses Into' by Brenda Riojas

The military occupies this city of faded

pink concrete walls marked in green and black graffiti,

a city of curfews populated with fear,

a city stained by blood lost, a city that feeds us.

From a distance we’ve heard about the horrors

in Ciudad Juarez, the women lost, so too the answers;

The child on her way to school, her father,

a reporter, shot as she waited for him to start the car.

From a distance we’ve read the stories,

1,600 dead in one year,

about the teachers who must pay

a percentage for protection,

about gangs, drugs, guns, an escalating war;

even the priests plead for protection.

From a distance we worry about what he crosses into

Monday through Friday when he’s away from home.

As we pray never to use the kidnapping insurance,

he takes a different route to work each day,

avoids solitary roads with unknown dead ends,

tries to cross back before dark.

The headline distance erased as he crosses

back and forth from a city that feeds us.