The Border: A Double Sonnet

Alberto Ríos - 1952-

The border is a line that birds cannot see.
The border is a beautiful piece of paper folded carelessly in half.
The border is where flint first met steel, starting a century of fires.
The border is a belt that is too tight, holding things up but making it hard to breathe.
The border is a rusted hinge that does not bend.
The border is the blood clot in the river’s vein.
The border says stop to the wind, but the wind speaks another language, and keeps going.
The border is a brand, the “Double-X” of barbed wire scarred into the skin of so many.
The border has always been a welcome stopping place but is now a stop sign, always red.
The border is a jump rope still there even after the game is finished.
The border is a real crack in an imaginary dam.
The border used to be an actual place, but now, it is the act of a thousand imaginations.
The border, the word border, sounds like order, but in this place they do not rhyme.
The border is a handshake that becomes a squeezing contest.

The border smells like cars at noon and wood smoke in the evening.
The border is the place between the two pages in a book where the spine is bent too far.
The border is two men in love with the same woman.
The border is an equation in search of an equals sign.
The border is the location of the factory where lightning and thunder are made.
The border is “NoNo” The Clown, who can’t make anyone laugh.
The border is a locked door that has been promoted.
The border is a moat but without a castle on either side.
The border has become Checkpoint Chale.
The border is a place of plans constantly broken and repaired and broken.
The border is mighty, but even the parting of the seas created a path, not a barrier.
The border is a big, neat, clean, clear black line on a map that does not exist.
The border is the line in new bifocals: below, small things get bigger; above, nothing changes.
The border is a skunk with a white line down its back.

We live in secret cities And we travel unmapped roads. We speak words between us that we recognize But which cannot be looked up. They are our words. They come from very far inside our mouths. You and I, we are the secret citizens of the city Inside us, and inside us There go all the cars we have driven And seen, there are all the people We know and have known, there Are all the places that are But which used to be as well. This is where They went. They did not disappear. We each take a piece Through the eye and through the ear. It's loud inside us, in there, and when we speak In the outside world We have to hope that some of that sound Does not come out, that an arm Not reach out In place of the tongue.

In the old days of our family, My grandmother was a young woman Whose hair was as long as the river. She lived with her sisters on the ranch La Calera—The Land of the Lime— And her days were happy. But her uncle Carlos lived there too, Carlos whose soul had the edge of a knife. One day, to teach her to ride a horse, He made her climb on the fastest one, Bareback, and sit there As he held its long face in his arms. And then he did the unspeakable deed For which he would always be remembered: He called for the handsome baby Pirrín And he placed the child in her arms. With that picture of a Madonna on horseback He slapped the shank of the horse's rear leg. The horse did what a horse must, Racing full toward the bright horizon. But first he ran under the álamo trees To rid his back of this unfair weight: This woman full of tears And this baby full of love. When they reached the trees and went under, Her hair, which had trailed her, Equal in its magnificence to the tail of the horse, That hair rose up and flew into the branches As if it were a thousand arms, All of them trying to save her. The horse ran off and left her, The baby still in her arms, The two of them hanging from her hair. The baby looked only at her And did not cry, so steady was her cradle. Her sisters came running to save them. But the hair would not let go. From its fear it held on and had to be cut, All of it, from her head. From that day on, my grandmother Wore her hair short like a scream, But it was long like a river in her sleep.

Poems

The Border: A Double Sonnet

More by Alberto Ríos

The Cities Inside Us

Refugio's Hair

The Chair She Sits In

poets.org

academy of american poets

national poetry month

american poets

Poems

The Border: A Double Sonnet

Newsletter Sign Up

Support Us

Follow Us