Borderlands Syndrome
Nate Maxson
You don’t get away from being born on the borderlands
You just carry them with you, a keepsake under the skin: a static constant
The men of my family have always been cursed with this
And everyone can tell
Just looking at us
In the brief hours before we turn back into vapor,
Quoting cultish bible passages at inappropriate moments
Say we do dream purgatory,
Well then which one is it?
My body slobbered by fire
Or a steel fence cut through the suburbs?
Where the river diagonally meets the wall, it just keeps going
Dividing to dust
Answer quickly and in the form of a question
Please
Let us amnesia the lilies of the field
Nate Maxson is a writer and performance artist. The author of several collections of poetry, he lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico.