The San Antonio Night Crossing

“... The closeness of the place and the heat of the climate, added to the number in the ship which was so crowded that each had scarcely room to turn himself, almost suffocated us." Olaudah Equiano, freed slave, abolitionist, merchant (1745-1797) We were taken in by roundup- legends of freedom, sold heirlooms to pay for the privilege of being crammed into a tractor-trailer like green- ware into a kiln. The youngest faithfully lifted her chin, Quinceañera memories still fresh enough to almost keep her balanced within that shifty, blistering dark until she felt another sharp shaft of air, a searing blast of a bone-dry wheeze from the next pilgrim to hit hot metal like he’d been shot in the head. The chant began again, Santa María, Madre de Dios, ruega por nosotros pecadores. Sweat stung our opened eyes, clarified visions of diaspora, of coldblooded coyotes packing cargo holds with cornered chattel. We, the many, shackled by migrant irons. We, a crop of people, survive only to swelter later in tobacco rows, on countless estates, behind thick shop doors, but each Day of the Dead, we will recount: Mexicans lost to a hardened geography where even breath is branded, an absence of just one half-mast flag, anywhere, their star- crossed national anthem, our costly escape into undocumented slavery, how long- suffering dreams either suffocate or hide scars, why wheeled sloops blaze down border highways with short-lived payloads, scammed commodities as expendable as a shipment of spring lambs ...