Olivas - Crossing the Border

Contents
Crossing the Border Collected Poems

Daniel A. Olivas Acknowledgments I am not the first writer to consider poetry a form of storytelling. I draw upon many sources including my life (as in Hot Tuesday on Rinaldi and Papa Wrote), the lives of people I have had the honor of knowing (Slip Dream and Why Did You Believe), or news events (Crossing the Border and Woman Gets Probation in Child Neglect Case), to name a few obvious inspirations. Regardless of my poems roots, I have many to thank for helping bring my first book of poetry to life: Heartfelt thanks to Pact Press for understanding my poetic vision and accepting my manuscript as the presss debut title. May you sell many books! Mil gracias to the wonderful writers Himilce Novas, Rigoberto Gonzlez and Patty Seyburn who all offer kind words (blurbs!) in support of my book. Each of you has been an inspiration to me, and I deeply appreciate your selfless support of a fellow author.

I thank the editors of those lovely literary journals who bring poetry to readers and who first published many of the poems that make up this volume. Those journals are proudly acknowledged at the end of this book. Over the years, I have become friends with so many writers, editors, educators, librarians, bookstore owners, and others who live in a world of the printed (and online) word. We are a community, and we are strong. A special thanks to my parents, Miguel and Isabel Olivas, who made sure that their children had access to books. You instilled in me the joy of reading which is the first step to becoming a writer.

And, as always, I thank my wife, Sue Formaker, and our son, Benjamin Formaker-Olivas, who make my life joyous, meaningful, and delightfully crazy!
Copyright 2017 by Daniel A. Olivas
First published by Pact Press, an imprint of Regal House Publishing, in 2017 Published by Regal House Publishing, LLC Raleigh, NC 27612 All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
ISBN -13 (paperback): 978-0-9912612-8-4 ISBN -13 (ebup): 978-0-9912612-9-1 Library of Congress Control Number: 2017942250
Interior design by Lafayette & Greene Cover design by Lafayette & Greene lafayetteandgreene.com Cover photography by Anuta Berg/Shutterstock
Pact Press pactpress.com Regal House Publishing, LLC https://regalhousepublishing.com
For Sue and Ben
Crossing the Border Its now a sport, great fun, a diversion from your work-a-day grind. Hunt the mojados wetbacks just doesnt sound humane, now does it? as they run across the border from Mexico to the great state of Texas. Help the border patrol (though they deny wanting help, poor overworked bastards) by lining up your pick-ups and jeeps (American-made, of course) and shining your headlights bright and revealing toward the scrub, toward our neighbors to the south. Share a nice little Jack Daniels with your buddy and keep a lookout for a family or two, crouching, lurking, hoping for a better life. Cock your rifles, but never aim at em, just blast a few warning shots up into the star-filled, moonlit night.

Its a beautiful evening, redolent with desert life, just waiting for them to cross the border. Papas Car Papas car was battleship-sized a gray station wagon that creaked and moaned with every turn. Clear vinyl pulled tightly over the seats revealing even more gray. The rear seat faced backward so that when I sat there, I could see where I had been, but not where I was going. Papas gray station wagon took us places like Venice Beach, or the dentist, or maybe a fiesta at my school or even to Abuelitas house. Sometimes wed just drive, not going anywhere in particular, and I would fall asleep feeling safe as Papa maneuvered our ship through the vast ocean of Los Angeles.

Las Dos Fridas I would have been there for you, when Diego was not. But you were never alone, you always had yourself. The two Fridas, hand-in-hand, waiting for no one yet hoping for him. But he is with a model, a young, stupid, giggling thing. That fat frog, forgetting his true love to be in a putas embrace. I never would have forgotten you.

Never for a moment. Es la verdad. Letters to Norco Dedicated to the incarcerated
My letters to Norco kept you sane, you said. Three years there for selling meth. But I wrote to you so you wouldnt forget me. And you wrote back.

Beautiful and sad letters. Strong letters. But the third one scared me and then made me mad. You told me that you rented my letters to your homies for a quarter so they could beat off to my sex-filled longings where I told you what my mouth could do to your body and what I wanted you to do to me. But then I wasnt so mad. And the thought of your friends getting off from my words made me smile.

So I made each new letter even better, hotter than the last. And when you wrote back and told me your homies loved my words and that you could charge thirty-five cents now, I laughed at my power. And on your release day as we stood in the August heat outside the tall fence, you held me and whispered into my hair that we should get married as soon as we could and have lots of babies. And you said my letters kept you sane. And I said, me too, mi amor. St. St.

Francis Dam, March 12, 1928 So, that cold night in March, we stole a couple of horses from the ranch where you worked, and started north. It was the only way, you said, to begin again, start fresh, commence a life with possibilities. And I agreed because I always did. I always listened to my big brother. I had no choice, did I? After about an hour or two, we heard something awful strange. First, it started as a low rumble.

Couldnt figure out what it was. Then it got louder and we felt it in our chests like the rattle of influenza. And we turned to look out over the river, in the direction of the St. Francis Dam. We could see the outline of the structure, designed and built by the great William Mulholland. L.A.s chief water engineer back in 28, he built that dam to hold two years worth of water in case an earthquake split the aqueduct.

We thought maybe it was an earthquake. But what we saw made us stop breathing. The dam shifted and broke apart, crumbling. The noise of the watertwo years worth, mind you shook our bodies and the horses bodies, too. Then we saw it: a wall of water, ten stories high going into the valley and rushing toward us. I yelled, Chingao! Lets get out of here! You just stared at the water, and you froze, keeping your horse as still as you could.

I saw that you were thinking about Juanita and your eight children who slept in the shadow of the coming water. I yelled again and you finally heard me and we made those horses run faster than they ever had before. We rode until morning. About five hundred people died that night though more perished because many migrant farm workers werent accounted for. We learned later that the water washed away whole towns: Castaic and Piru, anything near the river. Sirens and phone calls alerted people to try to outrun the water.

Some made it. Many did not. Three hours after the dam broke, Santa Paula, over forty miles away, lost three hundred homes though most folks had already abandoned them. And Saugus got hit so bad. Totally destroyed. Sad stories, too.

Like those forty-two children whod been attending the Saugus Elementary School were washed away, just like that. The names of everyone who died, or at least everyone who could be identified, were listed in the California papers. So, I tried to hide the Los Angeles Times , but you found it and scanned the column with the headline: PARTIAL LIST OF PERSONS DEAD. I watched your dark eyes, darting back and forth, a frantic pace, searching for the names. And I knew that you would find halfway down the first column: MRS. J.