You Whom They Border

You Whom

you border crosser in this simulation you constantly slip and call one border by the other’s name the names aren’t straight inside of you and you conflate one with two because you still yearn for another border four by four hidden crossers that everyday irrigated jeep tries to cross

this is the border simulator where you imagine your way through the relationship you can pretend to get chased by someone who looks like you employed by the border to grab others like you that’s the number of remains found in the year not the deaths you can catch the catcher of catchers who funnel crossers into more habitable parts their words don’t know how to border each other

They Border

their worlds don’t know how to border each other or where to draw the imaginary dotted line we were crossing and it was fine until the words left us and we couldn’t see each others eyes or fear but we knew it was there and their bland coyote is all bright division with his shoulders over the desert and through the cholla and there’s pressure to keep the cars moving Bachelard says humans love caves and hidden drawers these coyotes love hiding Guatemalans in little cupboards in the back of their trucks in clever compartments once over they pop out with open arms and say cabrón

“You Whom They Border” appeared in The Literary Review and “Border Simulation (Is This Language a Desert Also?)” was published in Hunger Mountain.

gabriel dozal is from El Paso, TX. He received his mfa in poetry from The University of Arizona. His work appears in Guernica, The Iowa Review, The Brooklyn Rail, The Literary Review, Hunger Mountain, Contra Viento, A Dozen Nothing, and The Volta.