El dompe at Matamoros
At home in their everyday devastation,
the children come close
with their deformities
because we, gawkers, broke down.
First World workers, we swoop in
like the scavenging birds
that twirl up and down at that green,
turbid water, clogged with waste,
circle above in the smoky inferno
of air. Birds can fly away,
and so can we. One man salvaged
an armchair, placed it
in front of his shoulder-high house
made of castoffs. These leftover people
are everywhere, everywhere our dollars
do and do not go. They are the detritus
to our affluence. The children
gather as the birds do, come to see
what we look like. Some do.
Some are too busy dying
to even wonder at these engines
of ours that only rarely break down.
The men come to help us.