Cariña, Negro, and Lobo, the girl calls them.
Quiet as spilled blood, they pass
through our camp, hoping she'll drop
the pail of scraps we offer for her pigs.
Negro and Lobo, Spanish words everyone knows.
Cariña is harder to translate, suggesting love.
She shouldn't have named those dogs,
Sam tells me. In Northern Mexico,
animals can never be pets.
One night they tear open our garbage
to lick oil from tuna fish cans, cereal dust
from boxes, beads of condensed milk, and
Sam names them Gardenia, Blackrat,
and Ratslink. Having been beaten, they do slink,
rock-stunned shadows, skeletons working
their way out. In these mountains, Sam says,
food is for people and animals that feed
people. Nothing for dogs. So I feed them,
far from camp—burned scones, yogurt
no one will eat, the waxy skin of the cheese.
They fight for each scrap, gag down the chance
for a longer life. Their one feast, three dozen
left-over eggs scrambled and left on a rock,
is too late for a failing Lobo,
who shies from the tortilla I throw him,
seeing me as the scorpion of his death.
When he finally drops, I'll wedge his carcass
between two rocks, a kind of grave.
Send for an amaryllis to grow through the ribs,
that bulb that does nothing for months,
then snakes like a cobra to its full height,
spreads its insistent head. Flowers
red as poison trumpet from the stalk.
There is more than enough, they promise
in four directions. Believe it. Don't ask
the source of our velvet excess. |