by Leymen Pérez

          Todo lo que conozco es una puerta
          a la oscuridad.
                    — Seamus Heaney

Entras a la noche
que nadie puede derribar con un grito
y piensas que ya no tendrás más dolor.

Caminas por donde las imágenes de la nación
están en ruinas.

Y tu hijo descubre el mundo
no como los Niños del carretón de Francisco de Goya
sino a través de las sombras
que en la pared       avanzan
                           retroceden
                                  hablan
                          enmudecen

como las oscuridades en la cueva de Platón
como la luz
al otro lado.

Están en ruinas las imágenes de la nación
y el dolor explica que sin corner comes
                                     sin caminar caminas
                                       y sin pensar piensas.

Una imagen responde: “Estoy aquí, en lo oscuro”.
En lo oscuro respiras y te asfixias.
Vida oscura
fracturas de la belleza
secaderos.

Desde lo oscuro te impulsas.

Like the Darkness in Plato’s Cave

          All I know is a door
          into the dark.
                    — Seamus Heaney

You enter night
that no one can shatter with a scream
and think there will be no more pain.

You walk where the images of the nation
lay in ruins.

And your son discovers the world
not like Goya’s Children of the Cart
but through shadows
on the wall       they advance
                                 retreat
                                   speak
                                go silent

like the darkness in Plato’s cave
like the light
on the other side.

The images of the nation lay in ruins
and your pain allows you to eat without eating
                                         walk without walking
                                            think without thinking.

An image responds: “Here I am, in the dark.”

In the dark you breathe and suffocate.
Dark life
slivers of beauty
hung out to dry.

You propel yourself from darkness.

Un cuerpo es fuerte
cuando la oscuridad entra
y sale de él
sin cambiar las vibraciones, dice la imagen.

Dicen los que están en el fondo del fondo
que allí hay demasiada luz
expresando la superficie.

A través de la luz permaneces
en el tapiz del mismo paisaje
empujando las bóvedas del aire
para que sane la tierra.

Mientras empujas
no te das cuenta que tienes
las piernas y el cuello encadenados
como los seres en la cueva de Platon.
Estás inmovilizada pero empujas
aun cuando solo puedes ver
lo que tienes delante:
texturas agrestes, dolor.

Dices adiós
y florece lo que había muerto.
Canta el silencio. Cantan
los que habían enmudecido.
Entras a la noche.

A body is strong
when darkness enters
and leaves it
without altering the vibrations, the image says.

Those in the depth of the depths
say there is too much light
revealing the surface.

You remain in the light
in the tapestry of the same landscape
pushing the domes of air
so the earth will heal.

And as you push
you are not aware
that your legs and neck are chained
like the beings in Plato’s cave.
Immobile you push
even when all you can see
is what is before you:
rough textures, pain.

You say goodbye
and what died blooms.
Silence sings. Those
who have been silenced sing.
You enter the night.

English translation by Margaret Randall

by Joe Richey

At the international line high–noon cool 100 degree day east of Sasabe, Arizona, pissing in the sizzling sand I burned hand on a rusted fence. An undocumented cow wandered over the Sonora and over the border into a piece of shade on the Buenos Aires Wildlife Refuge. US Marine from Montana Kyle Todd guards the refuge.

“We pick em up for the Arizona Livestock Commission
keep them for a month or so, if they’re healthy, and no rightful owner appears, we send them to slaughter.”

Not a single cow got rounded up, classified, identified, tagged, tugged, transported, finger–printed, or iris scanned that day. Officer Todd pointed his pistol to uncharted trails and roads
carved by migrants, smugglers, border patrol, and us. Toys, clothes,
cars, empty water bottles, bent bicycles pile up in the dry wash.

“A great place for target practice,”
and remembered junk yards
in North Dakota.

No herd of javelinas dashed over ground radar systems. Not one jaguar, nor endangered pygmy owl. Nor did a single narco–terrorist shimmy through the concrete vehicle barrier. Pages of the Koran did not float about in the desert wind.

Just, quiet, majestic,
dumbfounded
Baboquivari Peak.

A subcontractor for a contractor for a prime integrator, unseen, unheard, and with as little environmental impact as possible, working under the Department Homeland Security, crept into my lap, recorded my obscenities spilling hot coffee driving to Lukeville, on assignment to cover the Secure Border Initiative’s SBInet and its pilot Project 28, the first 28 miles in a potential six–year contract awarded to Boeing Integrated Defense Systems to build a virtual fence along the Southwest border.

I feel the heat
touching the virtual fence
90 miles away.

Perched 95 feet above on top an MStar Tower erected by DRS Sustainment Systems integrated by Boeing, a long–range daytime and night–time remote surveillance control and display center spins 360 degrees, 24/7. The LORROS camera on top can locate moving targets for up to ten miles within line–of–sight in all weather conditions. A local painter points over my shoulder where a
camera scans from a tower, calls it the evil red eye of the eagle.

Feel that ground radar
beneath your feet?
Coming from that Smart Rock over there.

In the blinding sky, Boeing’s unmanned aerial vehicles float invisibly. The deserted landscape approaches nightfall and border patrol detection screens light up like pinball machines. CBP, ICE, the US National Guard, and the Minute Men on horseback photo op rides with anti–immigrant politicians, and their friends and allies. Calling all warm bodies, boots and tires on the ground from tonight in Arizona where it’s:

“These immigrants are getting under our skin.”
versus
“Don’t mess with our people until the peaches are in.”

On the Devil’s Highway 286, a dozen Border Patrol Ford Broncos, a National Guard unit, six Wackenhut transport buses idle in dusty turnarounds. A gas station attendant says, “There are nights when six busloads will fill up.” Arizona Governor  pipes in from the back of a security limo: “Because it’s not just peaches. It’s bridges, roads, skyscrapers. It’s condo units across the street.”

Burgers and fries. Rice and beans.
Cheese and rice. Jesus Christ.

A word problem from Immigration and Customs Enforcement: “Enforcement First” policies spent X billion tax dollars on Y number of US border security agents, plus surveillance, detection, response, apprehension, transportation, processing, fingerprinting, iris scanning, background checking, confiscating and storing, tagging anklets, add ancillary deportation services, plus Z number of National Guard units. What is the total spent on border enforcement?

What are the sounds of career criminals laughing?

New units back from Iraq
units well deserving of Yuma comfort:
jobs, bennies, SUVs, sunsets to calm down by,
like all of us need, but none more than they do.

Yuma
Yuma  Yuma
can get real boring.

Yuma
Yuma  Yuma
When they want an immigration emergency
we’ll get one.

by Mark Melnicove

In the middle of the spelling quiz, JFK died.
The announcement by our principal, an old man
who could barely stand anymore, came over the intercom.
The word we were struggling with was formation;
the next would have been crack.
Just like that, Mr. West, our teacher, retreated to his desk
and told us to gather up our things
and report to the gym, to wait for dismissal.
We formed unsteady clusters on the bleachers.
One surrounded Ricardo Castro, an emaciated kid, new
to the school, who had come from some place south.
He was not athletic, nor did he do his homework,
and suddenly, his last name became ominous.
A few boys taunted him, saying his uncle had shot JFK.
In all of America, this was probably one of the first
conspiracy theories to emerge after the assassination.
For a moment Ricardo, edging away, seemed to believe
the accusation, but there was no safety zone.
In the principal’s office, the administration was
fielding phone calls from distraught parents,
assuring them their sons and daughters were OK.
If rifles or knives had been allowed in school, some
crazed classmate might have gone after Ricardo.
Luckily, buses arrived, and we were herded outside,
where Ricardo disappeared onto the one not mine.
I saw him looking out a back window as it drove off,
his eyes counting the miles until he would be free.
After the four days of national mourning, when I
understood for the first time that despite the eternal
flame none of us were immortal, Ricardo Castro did not
return to school, and no one asked where he had gone.

by Mark Melnicove

Dust under the bed lies unmoving without complaint.
I have to get on my hands and knees to see it,
the vacuum grumbling for a good feed.
To think dust has been unnoticed during all those dreams
we snored through in which we tacked art on walls,
then ripped those images down because they were not
what we wanted to be remembered for.
Dust has slept alone, underneath us with no desires,
not even to be removed from the dark.
It does not wave goodbye with the sucking hose upon it,
nor does it claim to be the stuff we are made of.