On a border between two States
Someone has written,
“Fuck your nationalism.
We are all Earthlings.”
And on the Mexican border,
Someone has ripped through a fence
Of reinforced chicken wire
With bolt cutters,
And erected a hammock
By suspending it
Between two of the fence’s
Concrete pillars.
After swinging gently back and forth,
From Texas to Mexico and then
From Mexico back to Texas,
They doze off; contemptuous
Of the security guards
Patrolling this artificial demarcation –
For, once upon a time,
Texas was Mexico
And Texas didn’t exist.
When Eugene Debs was imprisoned
For conscientious objection in World War One
He said, on September 11th 1915,
“I have no country to fight for
My country is the earth
I’m a citizen of the world.”
– Heathcote Williams, “No Borders”
The Borderlands/La Frontera, Gloria Anzaldua
