If I Die in Juárez

Sasha Pimentel

The violins in our home are emptied

of sound, strings stilled, missing

fingers. This one can bring a woman down

to her knees, just to hear again

its voice, thick as a callus

from the wooden belly. This one’s strings

are broken. And another, open,

is a mouth. I want to kiss

them as I hurt to be kissed, ruin

their brittle necks in the husk of my palm,

my fingers across the bridge, pressing

chord into chord, that delicate protest—:

my tongue rowing the frets, and our throats high

from the silences of keeping.