Borderlands

Katherine and I sat on the lumpy motel bed in Yuma

staring at the wrinkled AAA map of the Southern U.S.

We thought we were on our way to New Mexico

but during those bleak winter months we longed for the breath of the ocean

“We’re really close to the border,” I remarked out loud

Placing my finger on a tiny dot at the edge of a large blue space, Puerto Penasco

“We could drive to the Sea of Cortez,” I suggested. It sounded so romantic, so foreign.

Anything to get us out of this Arizona truck stop town

We were young and didn’t think anything bad could happen

The border was a frantic maze of chaos,

no one checked our papers or asked us where we were going

The Sonoran desert breezed by in our rearview

with its’ giant saguaros and its’ black volcanic rock

Like the asphalt hot and thick

Every once in awhile we passed an American tank with armed soldiers,

a foreign occupier on this wild border

Stopping at a lonely gas station we asked for directions from a ruddy biker named Leo

Wearing a dusty American flag bandana around his neck he shrugged and said

he was just as lost as we were.

We knew he was lying

He had the flavor of someone on the lam, we didn’t ask

We followed his silver chopper down the long empty highway toward the sea

Wind in his face, a lone shadow, as the sun began to set on the horizon

We decided he was a dreamer, like us, heeding the call of these outerlands

And Katherine fell a little bit in love.