Esteban Rodríguez is the author of eight poetry collections, most recently Lotería (Texas Review Press, 2023), and the essay collection Before the Earth Devours Us (Split/Lip Press, 2021). He is the interviews editor for the EcoTheo Review, senior book reviews editor for Tupelo Quarterly, and associate poetry editor for AGNI. He lives with his family in south Texas.
The motel hall is smoky. There’s music. Accordions. Guitars. A man sings in Spanish, about a country, a mistress. The end of the hall is quieter, but the noise behind the doors keeps me guessing: tangled bodies on a bed, a TV screen filled with gun fire, explosions, gavels, guilty verdicts. And there’s a woman screaming into a phone, demanding… Read more →
Past the checkpoint,you spot a manwith a backpack, wavinga rag above his head.And when your fatherspots him too, takeshis eyes off the roadto take in this figureemerging from the bush,you wonder what he thinks,if he sees himself in this man,if he remembers, as youbelieve the blank starein his face says he does,his own crossing, how itwasn’t until the third, fourth,maybe… Read more →
On the shoulder, they rest—truck, car, van. And all afternoon,as you drive past each of them,you wonder why they’ve beenabandoned, if they had run outof gas, had a tire blow out,or if the engine, as personifiedas any object, had just given up,which is what your father saidthat night, years ago, he came homesoaked in sweat, and upon taking offhis shirt,… Read more →
And after my father straps a bladeto its claw, and mumbles what I assumeis the end of a prayer, I wonderwhat part of this is real, what sliver of truthpits him against a figure so eagerto thrust his rooster forward, to let gravityguide it to the ground, and to watch—as my father steps back, becomes spectatorand coach—the chaos that ensues,the… Read more →