We had only walked a few steps into the blessed lands of America, through the golden gates,

when she collapsed, eyes rolling back in her head.  She is receiving her sacrament,

and her limbs buckle under its weight. We had marched through the night 

under unrelenting darkness, because the helicopters flying over would spot

 our flashlights and fires, like eyes staring up at them from the tired dust.  The soles 

of our shoes open like tongues of flowers. Snakes and scorpions crawl over our darkened feet.

My sister’s shirt  smells of vomit and sweat and the muddy water of the Rio Grande. She saw 

the cool dark face of a rain puddle along the highway, and put her mouth down to drink.  

Now the devil lives in her belly, and she vomits blood, trying to stifle her gags 

when we hide in the bushes as la migra walk across the hardened dirt.  Their footsteps echo 

like scripture.  Our clothes drip and cling to our skin.  We emerge from the Rio Grande baptized, 

swimming to fight current, mud stinging our eyes. Water snakes with open mouths of cotton 

whisper prayers in Latin. We are novitiates to the beautiful American dream. The holy converted.

After one hundred miles walked, she tells me she can move no more.  

Her face is gaunt and her breath smells of warm sickness. I leave her lying

in the dust.  My sister’s death sounds like parables to the disciples. 

I drag my body through an unforgiving night.  I worship the country

who locked its gates to me.  I worship the men who will put me in handcuffs 

when they storm the fields where I work for cents a day.  I know my sister

doesn’t watch over me.  When illegals die, they don’t become angels. 

When I left her, her arms and legs were not spread around her body, beautiful 

and soft, her expression gentle and pale, like frescoes of cherubs on a church ceiling.

I imagine the harsh lights of a helicopter revealing her body, the border officials 

crouched around her with their batons in their hands, checking for a pulse 

of my sister’s corpse, stinking of rot in the Texas sun, illegal still in death.

Her lifelessness an atonement to their deity.