In and Out of Mexico

by John Rocco

In Mexico
the street kids
sniff glue
outside the church
holding big statues of
St. Jude
patron saint of lost causes
and pulling the glue fumes
deep into their lungs
before entering the church
to feel
the hands
of a terrifyingly real God
growing a face in the dark.

In Mexico
the patron saint of drug addicts
and drug dealers and criminals
is Santa Muerte
St. Death
and she has big tits
and a skull face
grinning in the falling walls
of heavy dripping candles.

In Mexico
at breakfast
at four in the afternoon
she drinks hot spicy soup
loaded with killer peppers
spooning some into my mouth
telling me, “It’s Aztec!”
She spent time in an LA jail
because she got caught with
a fake passport. She has a
jail tattoo on the back of her
left hand. “How I cross
the border into Texas?”
she asked me after I
asked her. “Waving
my hands and with
these,” she said.
“With these,”
she said cupping her
big dark wonderful tits.