Borderlands (a poem)

Carlos Fuentes said there is not
          a border with Mexico

but only a scar, a suppurating scar.
          Perhaps he did not wish

to remind us that more blood
          is flowing, soaking into sand

or staining the rocks. From the air
          the Border Patrol spots the bodies—

unwelcome migrants invading
          the land that was once theirs.

To the West is a swift-moving
          death trap, an irrigation ditch

fed by the Colorado River,
          and many are drowned there

while the authorities smirk
          and say it is their own fault.

Many are never identified and have
          only numbers for epitaphs.

Mummified bodies are routinely found

          under mesquites and paloverdes—

no one to claim them in the land of the free.

 

 

Poem copyright 2019 David Ray All Rights Reserved

Photo copyright 2019 Norah Booth All Rights Reserved

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