At the border, children cry in cages.
Drenched in dark dreams, I wake.
My mother reaches from the grave. Nails catch the hem of my dress.
I fall on granite. Red streaks my shins.
Wrapped in a gray Mayan shawl, her mother is silent.
My father sits sobbing. Dust spots his black suit. Dried red roses
lay across his legs. Thorns pierce the wool.
Her father weeps.
#ClaudiaPatriciaGomezGonzalez. #Sayhername.
Just turned twenty. Taking flight from violence in Guatemala. Shot
in the head by a Texas border agent. May 23, 2018.
Mother and father receive the white coffin carrying their daughter.
Its cover lifted partway.
Chella Courington is a writer and teacher whose poetry and fiction appear in anthologies and journals including SmokeLong Quarterly and New World Writing. Her lyrical, flash novella, Adele and Tom: The Portrait of a Marriage (Breaking Rules Publishing), is featured at Vancouver Flash Fiction. A 2020 Pushcart and Best Small Fictions Nominee, Courington (she/her) lives in California.