Fossil
In the palm of my hand,
I hold 521 million years.
Though it looks like something
right out of Alien, this life
form doesn’t scare me.
In the absence of answers,
it comforts me—its thick cephalon,
rigid carapace, limbed thorax.
Hard yet fragile, breakable still.
Like my once-held belief
of a 6,000-year-old Earth.
Rio Grande
This ground has always been cruel:
the way plate collided
with plate 36 million years ago,
the way heat then bubbled up.
The result? Volcanoes, hot springs,
minerals, the Rio Grande.
Or the way Luis Carvajal
raided the Rio Grande in 1582,
capturing hundreds
of Indians, selling them
as slaves to Mexican haciendas.
Or the way an 18-pound cannon
ball carved out Thornton’s
chest in 1846, the result
of a skirmish at the Rio Grande,
the year that Polk
declared war on Mexico.
Or the way 15 Mexican males
were rounded up in Porvenir,
a city on the banks
of the Rio Grande, then shot
by Texas Rangers in 1918.
Or the way Gov. Abbott
traveled to the Rio Grande,
signed into law S.B. 4,
allowing arrests
since 2023 of anyone
suspected of illegal entry.
Yes, this ground has always been cruel.