“Sonora Bound” and “Ghosts”

By Liz Pino Sparks

Sonora Bound

We fled in a heatwave 
eucalyptus ablaze
in the rear view.
Saints and angels just
memories like in our
olfactories. They say 
we are immune 
to our own bacteria 
and I think maybe 
the charm of faith has
worn off. There is
sickness here and
we try in desperation 
to stave it off, grow
new life in healthy 
air, where desert 
promises buds in
the harshest conditions, 
and we take that to 
mean hope instead of
death and, stilly, we 
wait 
for sunrise.  

Ghosts

When I think of 
Kyle Rittenhouse, I think of 
Sarah Winchester. I think of every boy
called into battle and how all battles
are of the mind. I think of how we tell
these boys that murder 
is noble
within the bounds of
unexamined motives, without
a history that makes sense
of their anger, within 
a nation 
indivisible 
from self-justified 
violence, that seizes land
and lives,
that believes property 
to be both in need of protection 
and also
in existence at all. I think of every ancestor
who will rise up, demand proximity 
for time eternal 
to the conductors 
of their demise. I think of how fleeting 
a life is 
compared with the years of a 
deeply-earned haunting. I think of
how it is not so much a question 
of whether the dead can talk
but that they must. 
They must.

Liz Pino Sparks is a legal scholar, teaching in the areas of Bioethics and Health Law, with particular foci on reproductive justice and human rights, as well as a singer-songwriter under the name Liz Capra. They are currently pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing (Fiction) at SDSU. Liz is a Mami to 5.