By: Evelyn Olmos

---

When the girls of Ciudad Juárez
appear dismembered in the desert,
broken limbs tucked between sand & sun,
Francisco Barrio, governor of Chihuahua,
will stand behind a podium and claim
no decent girl walks the streets alone
past 10PM. He will fail to mention
bloodstained maquiladora aprons
buried deep within our barren land.

When the girls of Ciudad Juárez
were first plucked from unlit streets
I simmered in my mother’s womb,
already tainted by the sins of this city,
I will be born into a massacre,
never meet the girls that disappear
on arid hillsides, I will be raised by
their vigilant faces plastered on
every post; I will look just like them.

---

Evelyn Olmos is a poet born in Ciudad Juárez, México who immigrated to Albuquerque, New Mexico at 10 years old. Evelyn is an MFA candidate at the University of New Mexico. She is a 2020 poetry fellow for Chatter ABQ. Her work also appears in The Athena Review and Sad Girls Club Lit.