La Serpiente Que Divide El Mundo, Train Ride From El Paso To Los Angeles Poem by Virgil Suárez

Here where the snake coils itself
into the ground by the warm water
of the Rio Grande, the earth splits
into two halves, one imperfect and jagged,
the other vast and ripe in its greenness.

On this side of the border, the conductor
announces that to the right is the brand
new Lee Trevino golf course, designed
by the famous golfer himself. The rails
aren't smooth here around the tail end

where metal biting metal screeches
like a rattler warning of how close
we've come to the shantytowns
on the other side of Mexico. Blue hills
pockmarked with cardboard and tin,

trash heaps that attract halos of buzzards
and crows—if you opened the window
now you'd get stupefied by the rictus
of dead things, garbage, a clash between
rot and honeysuckle coming over green slopes

on the other side. A group of children,
some naked, wade in the shallows of oil-
slicked banks, play on truck tire inner tubes.
They wave the train by. The engineer pulls
the chain that makes the whistle blow,

as though mocking all those who could not
escape this world of halves, this monster intent
on devouring pieces of its own flesh, rattling
through on its own ancient, petrified bones.