Eduardo C. Corral - Border Triptych lyrics

Border Triptych 1. For the past fifteen years, six days a week, at half past eight, Jorge has biked into my checkpoint station. He hawks over his papers, allows me to examine his lunch box, & then wheels off to his twelve hour shift at the pallet & crate factory. I'm close to madness. I suspect he's been smuggling contraband, prescription or illegal. He sports new toupees under a cap depicting an eagle devouring a snake. He rides spit-shined bikes that I inspect by taking them apart, checking inside the hollow pipes, sometimes slicing open the tires, but so far, nothing. Jorge always remains calm, & doesn't say a damn thing. Yesterday, a few days from my retirement, I swallowed my pride, & swore, if he told me the truth, to keep my lips tight. The ba*tard smiled, & causally replied, I smuggle bikes. 2. INS transcript, Sofia: I kept my mother's advice to myself. Before crossing the Tijuana/San Diego border, in a bathroom stall, I sprinkled gelatin powder on my underwear. We slipped through a fence like mice & waited in a neighborhood park. Hourly, vans arrived, & we were packed in, driven up river-wide asphalt toward families, jobs. Sweat soaked our clothes, salted our skin. Suddenly we stopped on an isolated road. Bandits stepped from the trees. The men were forced face down in a ravine. The women were ordered to undress at gunpoint. I unbuckled my belt, lowered my jeans. Sweat, gelatin powder had stained my underwear a reddish brown. I was one of ten women. Our mouths were taped. I was spit on. I was slapped. The other women were raped. 3. Sapo & I wait for the cool of night under mesquite. Three days in the desert & we're still too close to Mexico, still so far from God. Sapo's lips so dry he swabs the pus leaking from the ampollas on his toes across his mouth. I flip a peso. Heads: we continue. Tails: we walk toward the highway, thumb our way back to Nogales. The peso disappears into a nest but the hard-on in Sapo's jeans, slightly curved, points west. I catch a cascabel & strip off its meat. Sapo mutters, No que no guey. I bury its forked tongue: for one night our names won't flower in the devil's throat. We're Indios but no grin- go will mistake us for Navajos. Above us an owl grins like Cantinflas. The arms of the saguaros strike down the hours but the sun refuses to set. Sapo sh**s behind a cluster of nopales, & shouts out our favorite joke, No tengo papeles! for Gloria Anzaldúa