A question happened when I was a boy–a night. Rows of cups nailed by
their handles to a wall, each one eavesdropping on wind describing the size of
maize outside.

I couldn’t escape the table. A dream replaced
the hunger in my stomach, a yearning to be filled
from the bottom up with the wind

of a Yes. I couldn’t escape
my chair. I had no answer for the table
set with blindfolds

instead of napkins. One woman shifted food
to the side of her mouth that had teeth, a trapped princess
glared, others hissed above the stove. No one
could see me.

Tortillas torn in half over mud, the table
getting satisfied, the gossip getting louder, every plate empty
except mine. I wanted to run, at least to press

my ear against the wall. But only my mother
could ask, what’s wrong? Everyone’s attention
came on top of me for an answer. In revenge

I told the truth, me estoy moriendo de amor. The table broke
into laughter because I was too young to say a thing like that.

Mike Soto is a first generation Mexican-American, raised in East Dallas and in a small town in Michoacán. His current manuscript uses themes from the current drug war taking place along the U.S./ Mexico border. The manuscript can be described as a Narco Acid Western told in about forty five poems. It is written in lineage with Alejandro Jodorowsky’s film, El Topo, and Jim Jarmusch’s, Dead Man, as well as with Narco Western genre writers like Hilario Peña (Chinola Kid).