Perspectives Gained from Los Ranchitos off Hwy 59

Vamos a caminar, / a darnos una vuelta alrededor del rancho. / Es un buen ejercicio, para el cuerpo y para / el alma.

Un Poco Manic

I didn’t know then that, / ultimately, my mother was all alone, despite how much people envied her / Verónica Castro eyes, despite her three children always trying to please her, / watchful for the ways we could be exactly who she wanted us to be.

Watching the Rio Grande Crest at Father McNaboe Park

The muddied streets and occasional puddles dampening our Vans. / We arrived and watched, silence curling up between us.

956

Laredo graffiti by Gabriela A. Treviño

Counting Oranges

Every time Alma sucked in air through
clenched teeth, she wondered if the streets of New York smelled like the trees she and her father slept under every night.

Untitled

Artwork by Andres Padilla.

In The Near Future, After The Last Last War

I will arrive in Laredo by stagecoach. & when I arrive, I’ll have to rent a horse because there’s no longer cars. Peak oil, come & gone.

A Scene on the Bus

For the first time in my life, I’ve returned my gaze to within the borders of Laredo. Artwork by Roger Alekzander Villanueva

San Antonio: Nuclear Target City 1981, 502 Grant

At the primas slumber parties, we’d read Tiger Beat magazine and Linda would make up stories that involved meeting our magazine heartthrobs. We listened to 45’s on the record player and imagined being the Latino version of the Jackson 5 or the Osmond Brothers. Nandito and Boyer would plot and execute scaring us.

Meteor Shower

The entirety of this place, / this sky, rests in the cavern / of my mouth. I chew on it / listlessly.