Poem: One Kind or Another

It is April, but the desert is cold.
Today I watched a man be burned
because it was too cold to easily
put him in the ground. I sat on a porch
with his family, all of us in ponchos,
drinking tequila, eating albondigas.
Last night, his sister crawled into my
sleeping bag, for warmth of one kind
or another. One thing is true: even
at its best, life is hard, and
I will not do anything to make it
any harder than it has to be.

from Traffic and Murder