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Somerville poet Melissa Castillo-Garsow recently released a book of poems, Coatlicue Eats the Apple. Grasow is a Mexican-American writer, poet and scholar currently completing a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard University. Here is an excerpt from this fine collection.

Talisman

Hard rain and roster calls fill the night. On this strip here, at this hour when even chickens know to stay away, the streets smell like the renegade stray dogs, soaked from three days of “tropical depression.” If you wait long enough you can hear the bone-crushing water.

You come here on business. Welcome to paso coyote. Transactions and sales floated on the Suchiate. Lives too. Geography and generations. A people divided. A pueblo. A familia. They come to strike deals and a new start in life.

Welcome to the Third Border.

Take this young girl, Paola. Her brother ex-Mara Savatrucha escaped. Road the train to Los Angeles and only lost his index fingers, his life savings and his dignidad. And now Paola. Deported twice, raped thrice. She hides her pills in her shoes. She can’t afford another aborto.

Maybe you’ve seen how they come back. Disfigured. Beaten. Broken. Hope hardened/choice cracked. They cross again. It’s flooding again. Maybe the jungle will be better this time.

— Melissa Castillo-Garsow

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Doug Holder, 25 School St.; Somerville, MA 02143
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