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 Frontera NorteSur
June 2000

BORDER POETRY

Upon Roaming the Borderlands
by Héctor Carbajal

"[We] don't know what we are because we don't know where we are . . .between two countries completely different from each other"
Arturo Islas

"To survive the Borderlands / You must live sin fronteras / Be a crossroads."
Gloria Anzaldúa

Upon roaming the Borderlands,
I step out of my body
and walk on
an herida, where blood
runs a river-the glorious Llorona's sanctuary.

Every step I take, I turn my head-
fences, barbed wire, walls-
I don't know where to go:
out of place, lost and forgotten.
I cry my anger.

I pose with arms outstretched-
hung against a grey, turbulent portrait sky:
"Please forgive them Father.
They know not how
they have conquered us."

I resume my journey
through the different lenguas, speaking tongues
praising la Virgencita and Coatlicue
from humble servants growing
floresitas del corazón.

My feet are blisters and
My heels will soon wear out.
I fear falling into the abyss
of assimilation, of forgetting-
into a pocho well.

I climb mountains
in search for God-divider of lands,
waters, nights and days-instead,
at the top, I see a preacher man
from my street: "Cristo te salvará."

Christ does not come, nor any
other celestial healer-
alone, among conquered spaces:
"Go Back to Where
You Belong."

My hometown streets
are walls sprayed
with guns from cholos.
Solamente fotos en paredes
of children searching sanctuary.

Punished-castigados-
for being queers, la jotería dwells
in alien spaces:
"You don't belong here.
Go back to where you came from."

South of the Border
I see the mojaditos crossing
el Rio Bravo-just missing
life by swerving highway cars
rushing to 8-to-5 jobs.

The binocular gods watch,
ready to attack. Perros desgraciados
babosos out for a preying good time
while this little lamb watching out for them,
endangered to be sacrificed in deep waters.

In the deserts,
spirits of young girls roam-
dejadas muertas, olvidadas-
solamente caras de inocencia,
pictures of memories.

Stop.
Quiero agua bendita.
Quiero una purga, una limpia, una ceremonia,
un ritual. I want
this knife pulled out.

Ehécatl,
Coatlicue,
Malintzin,
Virgen,
Quiero ser Despojado.

Héctor Carbajal is an El Paso born poet and Ronald E. McNair scholar studying at New Mexico State University. He has been published in El Ocotillo and Our Lady of the Lake University's The Thing Itself. He is also a former writer for the El Paso Times. He hopes to pursue studies in ethnic literature, film theory and queer studies in graduate school.