I stand alone, holding my credentials 
at the congested crossing, the last one to board 
the second-class bus going from Nuevo Laredo 
 
to Monterrey. A stranger offers me the unfiltered 
Delicado he taps from a fresh pack. 
Bits of tobacco roll onto my lips. My throat burns. 
 
Uniformed officials squeeze sideways down the aisle, 
hips large with holstered guns. They point out 
la señora to each other. She sits behind us, enthroned 
 
among small boxes, agreeably peeling pesos 
off a thick roll. The men return for another 
and another handout. Finally, the bus lurches. 
 
We bump past stretches of sand, a green haze 
of sotol, spires of yucca. A long screech of brakes. 
Young men in soldier green hold automatic weapons 
 
diagonally across their bodies, block the highway. 
The driver leaves to greet them, sends one to la señora, 
who hands over her wad and implores the rest of us 
 
to contribute. In churchlike silence we pass small bills 
to him. Later, in fancy script, my seatmate writes 
his address on an envelope in case I ever need help, 
 
but I’m traveling west and lose it. 
                        

The manager of the cheap and clean
hotel where the cabbie dropped me 
offers me a windowless room. 
One of its adobe walls stops short 
of the ceiling, leaving a gap large enough 
for a human head. No one is there, 
he says. Not now. I undress 
in the bathroom just in case, then lie back
in bed with my paperback dictionary, 
conjugating verbs. 
 
A light flicks on and two men 
enter next door. I stiffen 
and listen to their conversation, 
these strangers sharing air with me. 
Until one of the men tells the other 
he feels nervous that la norteamericana 
next door might hear his bathroom noises. 
I almost laugh. Then do what anyone 
would do. Turn off the bedside lamp 
and pretend to be asleep or not there at all. 
 
Soon after they turn off their light.
Their snores fill the gap. I relax on my back 
in the earthen room, a room that smells 
of spring dampness, the earthiness 
of the mud and clay bricks that surround me. 
I am as happy as I’ve been in months. 
I am safe as any man might be. 
As safe as a woman alone could hope to be, 
next to two sleeping men, 
two late arriving men 
who must share a bed with each other 
and a wall with me.