raul & i drive by a yellow sign that reads cuidado–no exponga su vida a los elementos–no vale                   la pena. we pass          a mountain where, tucked away in a place that the relentless sun     cannot reach, the direction & miles            left to the border    are scratched into a boulder.                          raul tells me that yesterday, under a creosote,              he found a knapsack holding                   only a light bulb & a battered bible.       the body was nearby,             so far from god. the legs                        consumed by cramps. the skin wrung             of its sweat. all the water escaping                           the body to try & keep           it cool. the clothes stitched      onto his skin by the sun. last night’s                  full moon a final eucharist his mouth               could not reach. he had a name,                       santos. he also had a wife. or maybe        it was a mother, or a sister,            or a daughter. the wallet didn’t say. we stop at a white crucifix           staked into the ground          where there are no roads       & leave twelve bottles         of water & twelve pears. raul tells me   that he once found                                  an entire skeleton in torn clothes,        the sneakers still tied        to its feet. on our way back       to the orto lado             a flash flood rushes across         the road in front us. we stop,                                      step out, & face it. we leave               the truck running, the speakers aching          y volver             volver. sweat collects at the base           of the gold crucifix necklace           underneath my shirt.                  the rains are short but so heavy,            i say. right raul?                  nests of gila woodpeckers poke         their heads out of a saguaro. i look          at their curious eyes.            raul, i say & the saguaro     blooms. i stare back                   at the flood. i say my mother’s name,         cristina, & desert marigolds crack through a boulder. i say           my father’s name, martin,         & all the novena candles                       in the bed of the truck are aglow.                         i say santos & in a pair of footprints                       in the sand a man is built up      from the part of his body      that touched this earth most.                   i say the names             of my tias, tios, primos, & a bronzed mass            dressed in white rises       from the rushing flood.  their backs are turned to me,           they wear my family’s shoulders.       they head north. before them     the white obelisk marking       the line in the ground                                   crumbles. before them the metal                      fences dissolve like mist.