you‘ll ask me what did Father see
in el desierto before he died
Father never told me what
he saw in el desierto
Father crawled into the cows’ pen
at night alone
at first as he made his way
through the maze of bones and skin
he couldn’t see the cows
only feel their warm breath
as he bumped into them
and stepped into cow shit
he was so thirsty
he tasted the desert
sand in his mouth
in between his teeth
he drank the milky frothy green water
from the cow’s trough
the stinking water was full of tadpoles
puros sapos negros
con colas y patas negras
Father didn’t care if he swallowed
sapos negros
if he didn’t drink the water
the sun would’ve sucked
the life out of him;
What Did Father Do after He Left the Cows’ Pen?
Father studied his round belly
with his thick black chubby hands
he felt his belly was a heavy watermelon
he didn’t think about the tadpoles
many years later, he told me
he believed a sapo negro lived
inside of him
he could hear el sapo negro croak
at night near his corazon
before the summer rains began
Father walked for days in el desierto
until he found himself alone
in a field of cactus and chollas
the dirt became soft and red
at some point
he had lost the other pollos
or the other pollos lost him
i’m not sure what Father had said
about the other pollos;
Are You Making up Father’s Story?
Father took off his shirt to show me
el desierto he carried on his back
he showed me the scars
he brought from el desierto to prove
he’d survived the sun, the rattlesnakes
the scorpions, and his thirst
the sun burnt his scalp
his skin had turned into a piece of carne seca
his skin still stank like carne quemada
i counted all of the thorn scrapes
from his belly and back
his legs and arms were full of thorn scars
yes, Father carried un desierto on his back;
Gerardo Pacheco Matus
Gerardo Pacheco Matus is a Mayan Native and recipient of fellowships from Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, CantoMundo, The Frost Place, and Macondo. Pacheco was awarded the Joseph Henry Jackson Award. His poems, essays, and short fiction have appeared and are forthcoming from the Grantmakers in the Arts, Apricity Press, Amistad Howard-University, Haight Ashbury Literary Journal, The Packinghouse Review, Tinderbox Poetry Journal, West Branch Wired, Four Way Review, The Cortland Review, Nashville Review, Pilgrimage Magazine, Memorious Magazine, Tin House Magazine, Play on Words, Anomaly Press, and Peripheries Journal.