Natural Born Killers

Natural Born Killers
By Aurelio

Fingertips bloody and desperate;
my grip loosens
as Natural Born Killers
marry at the Rio Grande Gorge,
bride tosses a pale scarf
from the iron bridge
flutters like a death wish
into an abyss;
the bride wears tight white shorts
over tight brown thighs,
and a smell
of dangerous anticipation.

Yesterday's newspaper
swirling at the bridge,
a smiling picture of a boy
released finger by finger
from his desperate iron grip
by his two best friends
who toss a coin after him,

"You're gonna die, man,
you can't fly,"
for a twenty buck high,
he couldn't pay,
he's gonna die, man,
he can't fly.

Natural Born Killers
tender in love,
embrace under roiling
red skies,
jagged red rocks
rip away my fingernails,
and my grip turns to dust.

My screams crushed
in a thunderous chorus
of surging water
and a silver coin
hurtles past me,
flipping head over tails,
Lady Luck genuflects
to a Lord of Chance.

Deep inside the chasm,
a whiskered catfish
flops like a leviathan,
a sea monster
the color of mud,
flopping in air,
yanking slivers of air
into its lungs, a clack,
clack wet sound
of suffering,
kernels of corn
and a silver coin
glint from its ripped viscera.

In the roguish water,
I can see the catfish
peering at me with human eyes,
water pushing its way
into the cuvito, riots
in the cold culvert,
a mortuary slab
where echoes the clack, clack
starving, sucking
wet sound of suffering
slicing my lungs
into white light
from a plastic bag
tightened over my head.

My ankles suspended
in water, entangled
in chains of barbed wire,
muffled sad songs
and blue babies
burst at the surface
like iredescent bubbles,
sad songs
are always so blue, baby.

So I run my hands
along the smooth sandy cuvito,
searching for an opening,
no words or wind,
wending my way in panic
through collapsed lungs.

Silver dollar plunges
before me landing
heads up,
Natural Born Killers incensed
walk away cursing,
and I step over rose petals
strewn in my path,
grateful for one more day.