She tells me they had a hen house.
I ask if only hens lived in the hen house?
No, roosters and chicks, too, she says.
She proceeds to patiently describe
That sometimes coyotes would sneak
Into the hen house, moving rocks, with their noses,
Blocking doors to the hen houses. Sometimes, she says,
Brazen banditos would rob the hen houses of eggs, chickens,
And count on people in the rancho thinking
It was merely coyotes. I ask her weren’t there men with guns
To guard them, or dogs? She says, yes, but it was dark,
Not as much electricity in the rancho, back then,
And the men were not always capable or awake.
She says they also sometimes cut their losses,
Instead of facing wild banditos ready to shoot men and boys,
And rape women and girls. But she says, later, in the morning,
After the roosters sang, the men would go into the campos,
Find coyotes at rest, murder them, and carry them back to the rancho,
bloody corpses, hanging on sharp sticks.
People in the rancho would cheerfully give them tips:
5 pesos! 10 pesos! 20 pesos! For the coyote hunters! ¡Cazadores, bravos!
Jose Hernandez Diaz is a 2017 NEA Poetry Fellow. He is the author of The Fire Eater (Texas Review Press, 2020); Bad Mexican, Bad American (Acre Books, 2024); The Parachutist (Sundress Publications, 2025); Portrait of the Artist as a Brown Man (Red Hen Press, 2025); and the forthcoming The Lighthouse Tattoo (Acre Books, 2026). He has taught creative writing at the University of California at Riverside, and at the University of Tennessee where he was the Poet in Residence.
Image: Mrgordon, commons.wikimedia.org
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Heavy Feather Review 