Napo 23

Home, to the Borderlands

On 281, heaven smells like citrus blossoms—

Faint and far away, but a memory

The finger can’t touch.

Here, the javelinas rule the brush,

Die on the roadside

And the mesquites bow their heads.

These empty counties were made

For driving through on the way

To somewhere else as the sun

Scorches and urges movement,

Migration, fleeing. St. Peter

Mans this checkpoint

In a green uniform—

But only stops those who leave

This sacred place. A camera

Flashes to record your stay

In heaven or hell or the afterlife

Or just a refuge where time moves

at the speed of Montezuma cypress trees.

The city lights glow like southern stars.

The lightning bugs used to,

Before the weeds of progress

Filled this landscape.

I come to baptize myself

In this humid heat of spring,

To this southern tip of Texas

To the edge of the world,

To the beginning and the end.