The Rats are Going to Eat You
“The Rats are going to eat you, travieso”
she scolded an old woman’s scorned life cast
ill intent upon my childhood’s naive trust
shaking a weathered finger at me and her past
she wanted to leave this place her house
built of empty hopes no love’s foundation
go return to her lover lost across in Mexico
she knew there was no return no two-way
Greyhound discount bus to yesteryear
from her country shack in Fresno to memories
of youthful days dancing in Guadalajara
mariachi trumpeters serenaded her future
as brujas divined alternate paths to sorrow
she at last crossed the border back to Cali
her heart bleeding from El Paso to Fresno
a final time without him her trail a river of tears
that time has dried into a drought stricken ditch
she holds back a bitter stream at night fists
cursing life’s missed opportunities of love
she becomes her own Llorona in bitterness
she glared at me “The Rats are going to eat you”
as I lay on her dirty floor listening for rats
as she laid on her bed listening for dead voices
Patrick Fontes received a PhD in American history, with an emphasis on the Mexican American experience, from Stanford University. His research interests include the criminalization of the Mexican immigrant, California history, border issues, Mexican religion, the Virgin Mary from Medieval Spain to the Present. He grew up in Fresno, in a working class Chicano home. The smells, voices, sounds, hopes and ghosts of his familia who have gone before him saturate his prose, poetry and historical work. His novel, Maria’s Purgatorio, is available through Floricanto Press.
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