The Other World
In El Salvador in the spring,
the army sponsors
an assassination special.
Free for boys who won't join up.
A more prudent 16-year-old
stops us on a rural road,
his AK-47, his confusion,
and his age equally terrifying.
There are enough mothers
of the disappeared to have an office.
Even that barren room has
bullet-holes in the walls.
Five bullet scars punctuate
the tummy of one mother,
awarded them while searching
for her suddenly missing son.
And now her eyes, locked on the linoleum,
visit daily to shake my mind by the collar.
They tickle the back of my head
like jackhammers.