How Many Miles To The Border

How Many Miles to the Border

How close to the other and his chaos
dusty roads and slogans marked
in stones against the barren hills

The line is there I know the wet line
of the river the deep line that pulls
you in as you swim from what you

are to what you think you really want
the weather too stops on that spot
the clouds too big to get through checkpoints

and morning dew that falls here in the desert
ushered into cubicles and strip-searched
under guise of freedom and liberty

give me the map the red veins and blue
careful not to let the folds and creases tear
more than we already have allowed

whole rectangles of topographic abstractions
dangle over the silent steering wheel
how many miles how many widths of the thumb

can span the mountains and rivers without end
how close how near the other and the smells
of his strange cooking his spices caught up

under fingernails where tired morning
moves its fingertips over the skull
I know it's close I hear his music
and his children crying out to be fed