The Devil's Highway - Luis Alberto Urrea - Little Brown - 2004

Beyond the border they could smell the rain.
It smelled like freedom. Freedom and home.
The desert composes its requiem.

The oldest was sixty, his grandson thirteen.
One wore new jeans, one carried a comb.
Beyond the border they could smell the rain.

They got lost, then they lost their water. The sun
was a furnace blast. Dust. Thirst. Delirium,
the desert composing its requiem.

Vampire air. Heat that bakes flesh off bone.
Hands fretworked with spines, mouths crammed
with quartz, they smelled the rain.

The boy dreamt saguaro was bread and the stones
were stars. He heard tall, cool-winged seraphim
rehearsing a requiem aeternam.

He made a neat stack of his clothes, and at dawn
he lay down. He burst like a ripe sunset, a plum.
Beyond the border, you can smell the rain.
The desert composes its requiem.