No Angel Came

Since 1993 somewhere between 600 and 2,000 women (nobody really knows, and nobody is keeping count), mostly young, mostly poor, have been killed or gone missing in Juarez, Mexico.  Tomorrow in Taos an art show titled The Daughters of Juarez will open at Parks Gallery in Taos, New Mexico.  The works and the exhibit are intended to highlight the ongoing deaths and disappearances, and the unwillingness (or inability) of the Mexican authorities to stop the bloodshed, or to bring anyone to justice.  Artists including Amy Cordova, Erin Currier, Deborah Rael-Buckley, Charlie Strong, and Olga Torres-Reed will have works in the exhibition.  Opening is 4:00-6:00 on Saturday the 6th of November.  If you're in Taos, don't miss it, and be sure to check out Deborah's piece Cosecha Amarga (Bitter Harvest): simply stunning.

Last March in Taos, SOMOS sponsored a reading under the same title, The Daughters of Juarez, and local poets and authors read works written about the ongoing events in Juarez.  I was one of the poets asked to read, and as a tribute to the show opening tomorrow, I reproduce that piece below.  It is not comfortable or lyrical, nor are the events to which it graphically bears witness.   Forgive me my trespasses...

  

                  No Angel Came

             (a poem of witness)

Hail Mary, full of grace

…llena eres de gracia…

the mephitic incense

of her charred carcass stains

a blameless desert with its dying flame

air black with buzzards and ravens

pecking at her remains

where no angel came.  

September 5^th, 1995,

name Unknown, 24 years old,

right breast amputated,

left nipple mutilated,

possibly raped then strangled. 

…bendita eres entre todas las mujeres…

and young and provocative deigning

to work or afterwards to go to a bar

“After all, it’s very hard

to go out on the street when it’s raining

and not get wet,” Chihuahua’s

attorney general admonishes us. 

October 23^rd, 2004,

Sandra Rios Salmon, age 15,

autopsy showed that she had been raped,

beaten to death, her neck broken,

found abandoned in a construction site.

…y bendito es el fruto de tu vientre…

women used as punching bags

beaten stabbed and strangled

then left somewhere where no one ever goes

naked or in rotting rags

just dumped their mangled

bodies left carrion for crows. 

December 15^th, 1993,

Yolanda Tapia, 50 years old,

found in her home

with puncture wounds in her skull

and a log in her vagina. 

…ruega por nosotros los pecadores…

where authorities no longer care to see

and no one can hear her muffled plea

in a city plagued by drugs and death

while alone unseen someone’s breath

is beat or throttled out of them

a savage end to a fragile dream.

March 4^th 1999,

Helena Garcia Alvarado, 33 years old,

found in a brick oven,

incinerated,

her arms and legs amputated.

…ahora y en la hora de nuestra muerte…

when it’s dust to dust and ash to ash

clotted with blood and fetid flesh

abandoned buried or burned

many unknown and most unmourned

and each senseless vicious death

another minor crucifixion of faith.

March 26^th, 2006,

name Unknown, 20 to 27 years old,

found on a small hill

naked from the waist down

with blood on her feet.  

And no angel came

…amen.