From Sasabe to Sasabe
Jorge runs his bicycle.
He is a postman who
carries brief letters written in Spanish
for those people who read only Spanish
in the desert with burning bush
among the huge cacti that look like
candelabras at the Vatican.
At the time when the shadows are the shortest
in a cantina by the town plaza
drinking lukewarm Tecates
Jorge and I talked.
He is a guero, a blond Mexican
whose father was a mine engineer from Iceland
who strayed into Sonora.
Not finding ores or bending waters
the man turned a public writer
and wrote letters for others, in a handwriting
more precise than the contour of an iceberg
for the correspondences from
Méxicanos to Mexicans.
Jorge, Jorgito, runs his bicycle,
with a few letters in his oversized mailbag.
Sometimes he stops to watch
jackrabbits, rattlesnakes,
far thunder clouds,
soaring eagles,
and occasional Salvadoleñas
lying face down in the desert, dead.
When he stops his bicycle on the road
Jorge never leaves its saddle.
