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Dig
jeff Sosner
ln San Salvador, they dig and cry.
They dig toward cries rising
through dirt�hoes of
seeds that will not.
Carolina watches KMEX; pick axes and
her gasps translate me, and
I know Spanish without understanding.
She trembles. I try to be
macho. But as dead grow in number,
I feel tears irrigating the comers of my mouth.
Medics check the pulse of a woman
who, until the shaking began, beat
eggs in her cocina. Now blood turns
dirt on her arms to adobe mud;
her body is n cracked shell. The spirit runs
where shovels cannot.
In Las Colinns, they dig and cry.
Carolina clings to me, half to
hold herself up, half to keep me
from slipping through cracks.
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