a long object. a fence. tall in places. taller in others. chain-link & concrete, razor-wire & broken glass: depending on where it is you come up for air, for water, for more.

you wonder, how your grandparents, salvador and louisa, made it across. you wonder, how did this fence go up, how could this happen. how long after they changed the border, how long after they asked celia or felipa to get them a beer, and they did, because they were raised like that, did they come back from the kitchen and find that their seat had been taken. put outside. now, brown skin can keep getting the beer, and then clean up after, and, in between, do the line-cooking and trim the bushes.

it was built, but still they come.

a berlin wall right down the middle of the americas that hasn’t had it’s 1989, that isn’t chunked-out in museums or art galleries; it is not a symbol of redemption.

it is a cage around u.s.

feed us. feed the animals. don’t stay off the lawn until it’s perfectly manicured.

fenced souls, fencing – a duel at dawn, brunch, lunch, dinner, sunset, twilight, eternity. for skin pigmented with hope, comes a sigh of defeat confronted even in dreams by this long object in front of them; my skin, colored from anger and embarrassment, from holding my breath, from holding in this long objection.