Two sisters, blue, in dresses.

The car is still smoking,

Smashed on the left side of the road. 

Their hearts are smeared

Their lungs are deflated

And their uteruses are bleeding, 

Pooling and pooling. 

Above, the birds begin to circle in,

Speckles on the sun. 

The blood is spreading, it is scattered.

The crimson and maroon

Puddle of life,

Puddle of history and the past

Is watching, staring

As the taller one reaches out her right hand. 

The vultures land,

Sniff with annoyance at the dead

Undying 

And they begin to peck the smaller one

Who is dying still.

The vultures are pecking incessantly, 

The smaller one is open for them.

They chew

Swallow

Spit

Eat 

All they can. 

But not everything. 

The taller one stands up,

The gaping wounds in her chest 

Spilling her inherited generations of red 

Down her pretty blue dress

And hoists the smaller one up to her feet.

She scrapes with her grimy fingernails,

Her sister’s guts,

Which are staining the road with red

And molds her back together. 

She picks up her sister’s heart 

Her lungs 

And finally, her uterus 

And puts them back 

With the tenderness of a loving mother.

She then picks up her own heart

Rolls it up,

Places it back into her chest.

She picks up her lungs,

Blows air into them,

And secures them once more.

And lastly, her uterus.

She cradles it

And gently places it back. 

Their organs, cooked

Under the relentless scrutiny of boiling blood

And hot pavement

Rest inside of them

In perfect harmony. 

The vultures leave one by one,

Back to Cali

Back to home. 

Not without a reluctant look back,

Regretful that they weren’t able to finish off

The sisters.

The speckles on the sun 

Are but mere dots,

Could be millions of miles away.

The touch of the gentle oriole, cardinal, and dove

On their shoulders is comforting 

As the generation of roadkill 

Watch the generation of scavengers

Fly, fly away. 

And so the sisters watch

As their kin, their past and future

Soar away from them, 

The gutted and ungutted of the highway. 

*La Buitrera is a small section of the city of Cali, Colombia. It roughly translates to “the vulture”, as vultures are known to perch on the cliffs and mountains within this area.