Two Border Poems
My border poems were originally published in Lady/Liberty/Lit in July 2017.
Singing the Abecedarian at Friendship Park
(An abecedarian poem is guided by alphabetical order, with the first letter of each line following sequentially through the alphabet.)
*Viewing this poem on an iPhone or small screen may alter the correct form. For its intended form, please view it on a computer screen.
Anyway, I am standing in Friendship Park on the American side of the
border between San Diego and TJ where, every weekend, divided families
come to pinkie kiss through iron mesh gates, from 10AM-2PM ONLY. I
drove my friend, Ana, here because she hasn’t seen her dad for an
eternity. Stopped for speeding twelve years before, her
father was held for lack of papers, detained three months on Terminal Island, then
given a quick ride across the border to Mexico. Unable to cross and return herself, Ana
hasn’t seen him since, only phone calls and letters over the years. He’d been
ill, had several surgeries, but now, finally, he was well enough to make the full day’s
journey up to Tijuana and El Parque de la Amistad,
keeping his fervent promise that they would one day meet again.
Love has no borders: El amor no tiene fronteras
My friend is sobbing as father and daughter lean forehead to forehead
nearly touching, but not quite,
only the iron mesh keeping them apart.
Papa! I think of mine dead five years now. If only I could see him, like this, for an instant.
Quickly, a flash of guilt reddens my ears, for I
remind myself of the many times we laughed, and hugged, and
sang old songs, “Blue Moon”and “You are My Sunshine”
together. Years that were denied Ana and her father for reasons I cannot
understand. How can laws that separate families be upheld in the
very country that speaks of opportunity and the American dream,
where hard work is rewarded and determination admired, laws
‘xactly the opposite of what we say we believe?
You are my sunshine, I sing, remembering when Papa and I sang to my dying mom. I
zero in on Ana’s fingers reaching through iron to touch. Please don’t take my sunshine away.
Grandmother of Exiles
(after the building of a second wall at San Diego’s border, late 1990’s)
I am the old one, no longer needed.
My ten-foot high corrugated steel
was not enough to halt or hamper.
Inefficient, they said.
They were on to me.
I may lack the grace and curves
of Lady Liberty, but call me
Grandmother of Exiles just the same.
For years, my horizontal slats were efficient
footholds for the tired and poor
scaling my heights in search
of San Diego’s sunset gates.
My solid walls hid; they did not hinder.
My ample bosom, my broad back,
protected, did not prevent.
But then, to augment
where they thought I failed,
they built a second wall, parallel to mine, a brazen giant.
Eighteen-foot high concrete columns, spaced for surveillance,
crowned by electrified coils. No beacon of world-wide welcome
is held aloft—only the fierce glow of night vision cameras.
In the shadow of this giant,
I wait
and hope.
Will I be dismantled?
Decades ago, I was built as a landing mat,
for Desert Storm, where iron birds
found safe landing on my strong, young back.
What those birds carried made me weep:
Shiny boots and gleaming guns that slammed down
onto my shoulders with a terrifying fury. Those same boots,
then black with blood, left imprints
on my back, as brothers were hoisted to safety.
When it was over, and they lifted me away,
I had such hopes to be of better use:
The roof of a school, protecting children.
A bridge over rushing rapids or steep terrain.
When I found my fate
at the San Diego border,
object of division, symbol of refusal
and rejection, I howled. I howled like only
steel can groan in a deep, earth-torn roar,
and then I was silent
until those
first dusty shoes
slid securely into my
slats and began their ascent,
and then I whooped. I whooped with
the primal joy of a mother who welcomes
her firstborn’s firstborn into her solid arms, to
love and protect with a fierceness all abuelas know.
Those years, those memories, will sustain me
as I wait in the shadows, hoping they recycle my aging steel.
For like the men and women whose calloused hands
graced my shoulders, who persevered seeking a better life,
I, too, yearn to find a place where I can be of use
in a kinder world.
