Greg Abbott
Greg Abbott
There is a border in your body
You can’t cross
Like all borders
It wasn’t always there
One day you were running
It was the last time
You would ever run
How strong your legs were then
A pair of horses who smell the barn
Their manes blowing over their necks
But the storm had already passed
Whine of chainsaws being angled in
Everywhere limbs
The wind had sheared off
Could have been a premonition
Had you been paying attention
Breathless you approached
The border where your life would break
In two
On one side you could walk
On the other you can’t
Something fell from above
Like a decree
Do you know Yeats?
I doubt it
Not many governors do
You were Leda the branch the swan
With green feathers
Did you put on its knowledge
With its power?
How could you not see it
As intentional
What are the chances that
The branch would break
Despite James Wright saying it would not
Just as you were running under it?
You sued the utility company
Responsible for keeping
Something like that from happening
So you wouldn’t have to hate God
But it gave you a lifelong distrust
Of the natural world
Alert to the conspiracy
Between wind and trees
Disdainful of anyone running
Towards or away from anything
Because there is a border in your body
You can’t cross
No one shall cross the border
At the waist of the continent
On your watch
And because your legs can’t feel pain
Let others entangle themselves
In the cursive scribble of razor wire
Strung across the river so that
They have no choice
But to grab it to keep from drowning
Sometimes in dreams you find yourself
Walking again
In the desert abloom with flowers
Protected by evolution’s razor wire
The desert before there were countries
Suddenly you know
You’ve come to where
The border will be
And squat and piss on the hard ground
As if to mock it
Urine splashing off your shins
You sob to be able to feel it
In your dream you’ve become
An old woman
Walking north
But when you wake
To your diminished legs under a white sheet
You forget