A Borderless Border
Imagine a place
where a
father
does not have to carry
the drowned body
of his infant daughter to
the other side of the river.
Imagine a mother in
Oaxaca, holding her 13-year-old
, making the sign of the cross on her forehead
, kissing her
goodbye in the foggy mountain dawn.
At night wondering if she
made it across
and didn’t get raped
, multiple times
or left
for dead in the desert
, or both.
Can you imagine such a place?
Where bloated bodies don’t fester
in the desert
, pictures of loved ones
and dollar bills stapled to underwear
, six-digit phone numbers
scrawled on lined paper
empty gallon jugs a jacket mismatched socks
scattered all around them.
Bleached bones a few feet away.
Can you imagine such a place?
Where a 19-year-old mother
carries her infant son
on her back
across deserts and mountains and rivers
through police, gangs, cartels, and vigilantes.
And makes it to the other side.
You loathe her because she takes your job.
But
even after a 16-hour shift at
the job you don’t have to do
, she can take your job all over again.
“Can you imagine such a place?
Where a man
doesn’t lose his tenuous grip
on the train (and on everything) and slips
, his legs amputated
by the wheels of La Bestia.
He uses crutches
the rest of his life.
Or
perhaps better yet
, he bleeds out on the tracks.
Imagine La Migra
chases a truck
with 17 people in the camper bed
as it careens off the road
brown bodies flying.
In Michoacán
the Solís family
gets a call about their sons
Lorenzo and Fernando,
and all you hear is screaming
, and then the call drops.
Imagine a place where 42 people in the back of
a semi don’t stop breathing
on an otherwise beautiful day in
Texas,
bluebonnets swaying on the highway median,
the mother holding her
five-year-old above her head
, in the darkness and the stench
and the heat of the
trailer, whispering “Si papito, mi Amor”
, until she succumbs
and all you hear in the growing
silence is “Mami, mami”
and then nothing.
You can’t.
You
don’t
want
to
have
this
much
imagination.
Jaime H. Herrera grew up on the border and always carries the border with him.
With gratitude. Con agradecimiento.
