– “ Border Tryptich,”  Norma Cantú



Outside, the hate copied and cropped

in reverse as if people were trying

to put together a construct by sorting out

a manufactured cross, struggling

over a wall and then putting in a stitch

to follow like a hard trail, a land map

sorted out through mature, white torch

cactus and dry rivers churning up dry

conscientious objectors, dry like

dirt or pressed silt. We are large

and weak, a group spread out like

a messy table, carrying what we can

manage, casting off the weight of

who we are against low trees: shoes

with broken soles, we are doubling

up on wet socks found discarded

along the weedy pathway, our feet numb

from the heat of walking though our

own heels. We cannot feel our toes, walking

through this giant land of pretended

sanctuary, the shot popping heard

sound around our tied up dry journey into

rope time we know not of nor can we track.

We are originals unto ourselves, rivers

delivered from mercy like long ago Gods,

Captains of steel who swallowed carefully

the reward of new cities built as they imagined

when manufacturing. Like lies we grow into.

We are not given, we are the steel, the iron-armed

harm we cannot vocalize in our diaspora

bodies as we walk without stopping,

metal doubling up on discarded wet socks,

found along the way like us, discarded.