<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div dir="auto" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div class="">Floaters</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><span style="font-size: 14px;" class="">"Ok, I’m gonna go ahead and ask ... have ya’ll ever seen floaters this clean. I’m</span></div><div class=""><span style="font-size: 14px;" class="">not trying to be an a$$ but I HAVE NEVER SEEN FLOATERS LIKE THIS,</span></div><div class=""><span style="font-size: 14px;" class="">could this be another edited photo. We’ve all seen the dems and liberal parties</span></div><div class=""><span style="font-size: 14px;" class="">do some pretty sick things."</span></div><div class=""><span style="font-size: 14px;" class="">- Anonymous post, “I’m 10-15” Border Patrol Facebook group</span></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Like a beer bottle thrown into the river by a boy too drunk to cry,</div><div class="">like the shard of a Styrofoam cup drained of coffee brown as the river,</div><div class="">like the plank of a fishing boat broken in half by the river, the dead float.</div><div class="">And the dead have a name: floaters, say the men of the Border Patrol,</div><div class="">keeping watch all night by the river, hearts pumping coffee as they say</div><div class="">the word floaters, soft as a bubble, hard as a shoe as it nudges the body,</div><div class="">to see if it breathes, to see if it moans, to see if it sits up and speaks.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">And the dead have names, a feast day parade of names, names that</div><div class="">dress all in red, names that twirl skirts, names that blow whistles,</div><div class="">names that shake rattles, names that sing in praise of the saints:</div><div class="">Say Óscar Alberto Martínez Ramírez. Say Angie Valeria Martínez Ávalos.</div><div class="">See how they rise off the tongue, the calling of bird to bird somewhere</div><div class="">in the trees above our heads, trilling in the dark heart of the leaves.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Say what we know of them now they are dead: Óscar slapped dough</div><div class="">for pizza with oven-blistered fingers. Daughter Valeria sang, banging</div><div class="">a toy guitar. He slipped free of the apron he wore in the blast of the oven,</div><div class="">sold the motorcycle he would kick till it sputtered to life, counted off</div><div class="">pesos for the journey across the river, and the last of his twenty-five</div><div class="">years, and the last of her twenty-three months. There is another name</div><div class="">that beats its wings in the heart of the trees: Say Tania Vanessa Ávalos,</div><div class="">Óscar’s wife and Valeria’s mother, the witness stumbling along the river.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Now their names rise off her tongue: Say Óscar y Valeria. He swam</div><div class="">from Matamoros across to Brownsville, the girl slung around his neck,</div><div class="">stood her in the weeds on the Texas side of the river, swore to return</div><div class="">with her mother in hand, turning his back as fathers do who later say:</div><div class="">I turned around and she was gone. In the time it takes for a bird to hop</div><div class="">from branch to branch, Valeria jumped in the river after her father.</div><div class="">Maybe he called out her name as he swept her up from the river;</div><div class="">maybe the river drowned out his voice as the water swept them away.</div><div class="">Tania called out the names of the saints, but the saints drowsed</div><div class="">in the stupor of birds in the dark, their cages covered with blankets.</div><div class="">The men on patrol would never hear their pleas for asylum, watching</div><div class="">for floaters, hearts pumping coffee all night on the Texas side of the river.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">No one, they say, had ever seen floaters so clean: Óscar’s black shirt</div><div class="">yanked up to the armpits, Valeria’s arm slung around her father’s</div><div class="">neck even after the light left her eyes, both face down in the weeds,</div><div class="">back on the Mexican side of the river. Another edited photo: See how</div><div class="">her head disappears in his shirt, the waterlogged diaper bunched</div><div class="">in her pants, the blue of the blue cans. The radio warned us about</div><div class="">the crisis actors we see at one school shooting after another; the man</div><div class="">called Óscar will breathe, sit up, speak, tug the black shirt over</div><div class="">his head, shower off the mud and shake hands with the photographer.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Yet, the floaters did not float down the Río Grande like Olympians</div><div class="">showing off the backstroke, nor did their souls float up to Dallas,</div><div class="">land of rumored jobs and a president shot in the head as he waved</div><div class="">from his motorcade. No bubbles rose from their breath in the mud,</div><div class="">light as the iridescent circles of soap that would fascinate a two-year-old.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">And the dead still have names, names that sing in praise of the saints,</div><div class="">names that flower in blossoms of white, a cortege of names dressed</div><div class="">all in black, trailing the coffins to the cemetery. Carve their names</div><div class="">in headlines and gravestones they would never know in the kitchens</div><div class="">of this cacophonous world. Enter their names in the book of names.</div><div class="">Say Óscar Alberto Martínez Ramírez; say Angie Valeria Martínez Ávalos.</div><div class="">Bury them in a corner of the cemetery named for the sainted archbishop</div><div class="">of the poor, shot in the heart saying mass, bullets bought by the taxes</div><div class="">I paid when I worked as a bouncer and fractured my hand forty years</div><div class="">ago, and bumper stickers read: El Salvador Is Spanish for Vietnam.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">When the last bubble of breath escapes the body, may the men</div><div class="">who speak of floaters, who have never seen floaters this clean,</div><div class="">float through the clouds to the heavens, where they paddle the air</div><div class="">as they wait for the saint who flips through the keys on his ring</div><div class="">like a drowsy janitor, till he fingers the key that turns the lock and shuts</div><div class="">the gate on their babble-tongued faces, and they plunge back to earth,</div><div class="">a shower of hailstones pelting the river, the Mexican side of the river.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>- Martin Espada</div><div class=""><br class=""></div></div></body></html>