Las Mujeres (The Women)

Serve them cold beans, government-required protein, save money for the shareholders. Commissary candy bars for those with cash, it won’t make them less hungry for the touch of a loved one, a breath of fresh air. Feed the hungry? The snarling guard says “get up you pigs, you won’t eat for free!”

Before prison the women trekked through dark deserts, siphoned poisons off old cow puddles. Hid from rabid coyotes, drug-runner guns, border patrol. Crossed the river, swam the ocean, climbed the wall: Ana, Angela, Alba, Brenda, Esmeralda, Jeanette, Josseline, Luz, My-wei, Toni, Wendy, Yanira, Zelda.

Can’t help them cross (crosses line the roads running north). No aiding and abetting, no drink for the thirsty. Dying of dehydration and exposure, they tore off their clothes. Mothers daughters sisters lost, bones dissolved, dust to dust.

But some were found. Clothe the naked bodies in used briefs, holey tennis shoes. Crank air conditioning to blast through waffle weave shirts. Limit blankets, bolster bottom lines. Launder shapeless green-orange-red jumpsuits.

The corporation pays eighty cents for laundry, two days’ work buys a Snickers. That’s how we welcome the stranger from Bangladesh, China, Ghana, Honduras, Mexico. The women sleep eighty to a room in rows of bunk beds, strobe-lit by ascending moon, melting through window-bars.

We will not look after the sick, wash feet, wrap ankles, salve busted blisters. Care costs! Ignore respiratory illness, bleeding bruise, abscessed tooth. Treat depression and suicidal thoughts with truckloads of Zoloft and Seroquel. Prozac for depressed moms missing baby birthdays, bedtime stories.

Nobody asked them to clean our houses, watch our children, do our nails, cook our food. No English? No problem. Just sign on the dotted line. Erase your rights, ignore the wrong. Can’t make bail, can’t pay attorneys, can’t read the plea bargain? Take a return-trip-ticket.

Arrest them for climbing sharp mountains without a visa, for driving with dark skin. They can spend months in jail, recreate in the concrete walls of detention, play basketball on multi-ethnic teams, groan as the long shot rolls slowly around the metal hoop, wobbles on the edge, and finally... falls... out.

LAURA DRAVENSTOTT is a Colorado resident, a wife and a mother of three children. Her work has been published in Progenitor (2016) and in IMM Print, an online publication.