3

2.  T h e   W a r n i n g

Just before sunrise,

Juan is jogging

toward the Rio Grande 

to take a coveted job

with the Chisos Mining Company.

When the curandero appears,

as if from nowhere,

to warn him of the perils

of the mine, Juan never flinches,

saying he fears neither blood

nor death.  As the old man rasps,

Juan remembers the soiled

and tattered Mexican

history book he studied

in school: how its pages

reeked of the iron-rich

smell of blood.  Juan remembers

how all its chilling stories

ended in death, dark

and ubiquitous as the shadows

in sunlight.  Juan never flinches,

saying he fears neither the iron

rich blood nor the death

ubiquitous as the shadows.