58
Poetry
Conceptions Southwest
Northern New Mexico Tori Cรกrdenas
Grandpa told us stories of men that turn into devils when you dance with them during Lent. But all the rest of the time, the men at the bars are just hairy wolves with cloven feet. We dreaded the night when the cocos with long yellow teeth unhinged their slavering jaws, yawning, widening, unfurling their long dry tongues to swallow our small soft feet hanging over the edge of the bed. Finger bones and old tin cans lay scattered along the dirt road to my house and la Llorona haunts the acequias that are lined with concrete.