A Killing, By Benjamin Alire Saenz

Nearly 1,000 mourners filled Immaculate Heart of Mary Cathedral Tuesday for the funeral of Amy Houser, one of four Las Cruces residents slain in a robbery. Saturday morning, two gunmen entered the bowling alley, rounded up Houser and six others, and shot each twice in the back of the head as they lay on the floor.

Las Cruces, New Mexico

Feb. 10, 1990

For Gloria

What she made in her body is broken.

Lost, she searches, everywhere, for news

of her daughter. She looks with want,

her hunger controls her now. Is she hurt--

my Amy? I want to reach my fist down my throat

and force out the word that is

food: She is alive. I want to hand her

this banquet, serve her, watch her feast

on the goodness.

I ache for sleep

but she disturbs. She comes to me.

She is running out of the bakery still

wearing her apron, stained

from her morning work. She who bakes

today will not see the bread rise.

She is in tears, but the salt

that flows from within her

seasons her face with hope.

She waits for news, arms ready

to hold again. She reaches,

breaks through a barricade in front

of that place--a shooting. She grabs

a policeman’s arm making him show

his face--I see that it is me. Is she hurt?

I feel her

body against mine as she digs her whole

self into me--a root clinging to soil

but the soil is spent. Her howl

is a wind that runs through me

daily--blows my blood like sand

and I become a desert that knows only

thirst. I see her taking my face between

her hands--her smile holding the question.

Patient, she waits for an answer. Come,

woman, I will take you to her tomb. You

will see that it is empty. We go to the place

where they have laid her. But I am not

strong enough to roll back the stone.

From “Calendar of Dust” by Benjamin Alire Saenz. (Broken Moon Press: $10) 1991 Reprinted by permission. Saenz has just won a 1993 Lannan Literary Fellowship for his poetry (see Page 10) . This is his favorite poem from “Calendar of Dust.”