Los Zetas.

Don Manuel is chopping wood outside, loud as all hell,
The baby is crying and the girl fusses over him,
Doňa Nita cooking the eggs for dinner with hot oil popping,
Omar changing the fertilizer from one sack to another, preparing for tomorrow,
It’s late, like 8:00, the news just coming on,
I lean closer to the fuzzy TV to hear more, exasperated, almost falling off my chair. Armida laughs at me. Then:

72 immigrants discovered dead in northern Mexico.
Everything stops.

We remember the boy who lived here, the son who went at 19 years old, his money sowed tightly into his shoe.

Doňa Nita prays usually every night before bed.
She kneels on the dirt floor and whispers and asks God for things and guidance and peace
But tonight she just cries, just cries, her large body shaking in the silence of the house.

Of course, none of this will make the news in the United States of America.