Mike Soto
The Dead Women of Sumidero
The killers went to no trouble covering
the bodies no black plastic bags no lids
on barrels knowing vultures would bury
them in a lone cloud every day women
rouse out of sleep sit up thousands
in the blue black light to catch
hour-long buses in lots their bodies
know by memory by early morning
plants hum with the gloved hands
of women assembling screens all kind
& size LED LCD plasma touch
for smartphones & tablets shantytowns
leap into the desert to meet the demand
at the end of a long week golden arms
dangle out of sport utility vehicles men
cat call in elaborate necklaces step out
& tap snakeskin boots to music no one
will tell them is too loud women with
their own money might smile or refuse
in the wrong manner it's absurd to say
these were not murders of passion but
the media says the impossible imagine
no bars over windows & doors these
neighborhoods with no layers of graffiti
competing incessantly to stay king a body
appears along a highway no one discusses it
then a chicken farmer finds seventeen
it takes a number to shock people now
you might think a match cannot be struck
on such a suffered surface no one shouts
no one snaps no one has had enough
but then a mother's heart & mind go blank
screaming attacking accusing everyone in front
of the station the whole world of murdering
her youngest a dancer who had no silicon
implants coroners could use to identify her.
Mike Soto’s poems have recently appeared in Gulf Coast, Michigan Quarterly Review, Fugue, The Boiler, and Rust + Moth. He received an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College, and currently lives in Dallas, TX. To find more of his work visit his website at www.mikesoto.com.