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Souls.”

    Chorus of the Street Gossips
    Exita gave birth in the street
    Half the girls on the street are pregnant
    They’re between twelve and fifteen years old
    Their babies are newborns up to six years old
    A lot of them are lucky and miscarry because they’re given a beating
    And the fetus comes out screeching with fear
    Is it better to be inside or outside?
    I don’t want to be here mamacita
    Toss me in the garbage instead mother
    I don’t want to be born and grow dumber each day
    With no bath mamacita with no food mother
    With no nourishment except alcohol mother marijuana mother
    Paint thinner mother glue mother cement mother cocaine mother
    Gasoline mother
    Your tits overflowing with gasoline mother
    I spit flames from the mouth I nursed with mother
    A few cents mother
    On the crossroads mother
    My mouth full of the gasoline I nursed mother
    My mouth burning burned
    My lips turned to ash at the age of ten
    How do you want me to love me mother?
    I don’t hate you
    I hate me
    I’m not worth dog shit mother
    I’m only worth what my fists deliver
    Fists for fighting fists for stealing fists for stabbing mother
    If you’re still alive mother
    If you still love me just a little
    Order me please to love me just a little
    I swear I hate me
    I’m less than a dog’s vomit a mule’s shit a hair on your ass an abandoned
    Huarache a rotten peach a black banana peel
    Less than a drunkard’s belch
    Less than a policeman’s fart
    Less than a headless chicken
    Less than a bum’s old prick
    Less than the skinny ass of a Campeche whore
    less than a drug dealer’s spittle
    less than the shaved ass of a baboon in the zoo
    less than less mamacita
    don’t let me kill myself all alone
    tell me something to make me feel like a real fucker
    a real bad motherfucker mother
    jes gimme a hand to get out of this mother
    damned to this forever mother?
    look at my nails black to the quick
    look at my eyes glued shut by rheum
    look at my lips chapped raw
    look at the black slime on my tongue
    look at the yellow slime in my ears
    look at my green thick navel
    mother gemme outta here
    what did I do to end up here?
    Digging gnawing scratching crying
    what did I do to end up here?
    xxxxxita

The Disobedient Son

    1. Sometimes my father drank and sang Cristero songs.

    2. He liked to recall the deeds of his father, our grandfather, in the War of Christ the King, when the Catholics of Jalisco rose up in arms against the “atheistic” laws of the Mexican Revolution. First he would drink and sing. Right after that he would remember and, finally, admonish. “May the sacrifice of your grandfather Abraham Buenaventura not have been in vain.”
    Because it seems that Grandfather Abraham was captured by federal troops in 1928 and shot in the Sierra de Arandas, a place, they say, that was fairly desolate and desolating.
    “The fact is that it was his time to die. I don’t know how many times he saved himself during the Cristero crusade.”
    Our father, Isaac, recounts that at times Grandfather Abraham showed too much compassion and at other times too much cruelty. Though all wars were like that. Many government soldiers fell at the battle of Rincón de Romos. Grandfather Abraham walked among the corpses, pistol in hand, counting them one by one by order of his superior, General Trinidad de Anda.
    They were all good and dead. Except for one, lying in the dust, who moved his eyes and pleaded with my grandfather, Have pity on me, I’m a Christian, too. Grandfather Abraham continued on his way but hadn’t taken two steps before the general stopped him cold. “Buenaventura, go back and finish off that soldier.”
    “But General, sir—”
    “Because if you don’t kill him, I’ll kill you.”
    In our family, these stories were told over and over again. It was the way to make them present. Otherwise, they would have been forgotten. My father, Isaac, would not tolerate that. The Buenaventura family, all of it, had to be a living temple to the