Life is slow
here in a border town
where lazy palms
scantly twitch in dead breezes—
dry and pollen-choked.
Everywhere.
Nowhere.
Cattle,
brown against my hand
and an expanse of cloudless blue,
meander aimlessly,
chewing cud
that never quite hits the spot.
Their eyes, like minds—
blank—
close to things made new
by the blessing of the sun,
cast downward
upon cracks and clods of grey clay
underfoot,
where a fire burns beneath the ground.
Life is slow
here in a border town,
where—in-kind—
like a shadow
I wait for a shift,
the balm of a breeze
to kiss the delicate yellow from the retama
and pave my road.
Everywhere.
Nowhere.
Noon rages overhead
(Devil’s at the crossroads)
as flames whip and lick the sky,
beckoning
just beyond the watery promise
of the horizon.
So, I close my eyes
here in this border town—
everywhere,
nowhere—
seeing white and the blood
that courses through my veins,
dig my toes into the ground, and slowly
burn.
/////Logos Literature 