Jackson drops thirty-five cents

in the cigarette machine, Chesterfields.

He lights up, snaps shut the Zippo,

exhales, drives on across the border into Nuevo Laredo.

There's nothing there for him

but a drunk, which is what he needs after

his Columbian run, six weeks down and back—

not a day, not an hour, 

rarely a minute, when he didn't feel scared shitless.

After it's all said and done Border Patrol

has another pen full of runners,

the prosecutors have job security, the junkies

still have all they want and more than they need,

and Jackson is six weeks older and not a penny richer.