Meet me at the border.
There where little girls use
yellow crime scene tape to play jump-rope
where moms learn the ropes of food stamps,
jump though the hoops
of social security; where their boys
play hoops and shoot from three-point-crown-lines
and insecurity tapes record the noiseless scenes
of convenience stores at nighttime
better not make a scene or you’ll lose
loose your rope or you’ll make a crime scene
zip code encoding your chances of survival
as you take your last breath
(wheezing from the asthma)
take your chance and let feet jump at the end
of your rope, pray you’ll sink
This is the valley of the shadow of death and
we are right on the brink.
—
Meet me at the border.
Meet me at the edge of your neighborhood
and mine, that thin red line where angels fear to tread
and latin kings quick-draw the line between the quick and the dead
with 9-millimeter lead pencils
Meet me there and we’ll stencil
a new border, sketch with incense and dreamcatchers
zig-zag the edges til the marginalized
becomes the center and we’ll devise
a whole new urban legend to match
this map of yours and mine.
