By Javier Sandoval
La Madre y El Diablo
He was lying in the dark Chihuahuan Desert
gnawing on a spit-roasted Rattlesnake
when she finally found him
And how he howled and flapped his sombrero
when she leveled her pistols
smiling that she got him
And how they giggled
knife-fighting in the twilight
over the last of the scaled scorched spine
How she gazed
at his jaw & brow
under the eclipse of his sombrero
He seemed to crystalize in the night
like the purple Sierras
but as the clouds loomed
over the moon
faded into shadow
A ghost image of curled black lips
How she breathed deep
spoke her Spanish into the dark
Quiero
tu amor
And how she broke
to see his cougar-green eyes flinch
then sulk away
He could give her everything
if only
that
Javier Sandoval grew up in the Chihuahuan Desert of Mexico and studied creative writing under Forrest Gander and John Wideman at Brown University. He now teaches at the University of Alabama where he also served as Poetry Editor of Black Warrior Review. His own work has appeared or is forthcoming in Gulf Coast, Narrative, Salamander, Massachusetts Review, and Indiana Review, and he’s been the recipient of Frontier Poetry’s Global Poetry Prize and swamp pink’s Indigenous Writers Award. His chapbook, Blue Moon Looming, will soon be published by CutBank. But mostly, he loves to smoke on the stoop with his lady. You can follow him on IG for updates and jokes @JavierWantsCandy.