The Statistic

 

( At the border morgue, Pima Arizona.)

 

They move another corpse

into cold storage. Shelved

and shadowed by the option

to be claimed

or cremated.

 

Earlier, they found her

on a hillside half--sheltered

with a fence and the silk gauze

of thistles.

 

She lay there nameless

owning nothing

but black hair

 

and the slim choir of bones

beneath her skin --

that echoed a long crossing.

 

The dry heat had come

like a sin eater

consuming the miseries

of her young life.

 

The afternoon  sun

was white as salt,

and the soil – brittle

as the crust of old bread.