The Border

.

The same dream badpennyish in its persistence,
returning once or twice a decade, thirty years now:
the dark quiet sea along the sandy shores of Veracruz
where the exhausted gulf flings itself on the beach
with a flash of scales, heaving up like a suicidal fish
viewed without interest by loose aggregations of
false hidalgos, who, stripped to the waist,
conduct idle and fractious dialogues beneath

the moonlit palms, pausing now and then to duel
with knives. Bodies flop to the sand, a sound unheard
but by the beach crabs scuttling upon their night rounds.
Beyond, smoke partially obscures a bridge of timbers
from beneath which a group of vagrants emerges
to put on a show for the rich: The Beggar's Opera.
A local pimp plays a highwayman in filthy
scarlet coat and muddied boots, daubing
his lips every few minutes from a small opium
cache kept discreetly in a wooden cigarette box.

Tinny brass strains accent the desultory action,

lent a dissonant lilt by offkey string chords,
searching the shadows of the overarching piers
one makes out dimly the source of this raucous noise,
the musicians a band of ruffians in severe and formal
dark suits, their eyesockets hollowed out,
their movements jerking and mechanical,

demented schizoid ragdolls armed
with dented trumpets, clarinet, guitar,
concertina, violin, instruments they wield
more like weapons, bickering among themselves
even as they play, and with bloodshot glances
threatening as well to attack the audience
at any time. Leaving the show behind one wanders

through semi-deserted narrow streets of long
low buildings, gradually losing one's way in
a labyrinth of turnings and returnings, coming
finally to stand under the shelter of an arcade;
suspended skyways crisscross the night beyond,
vanishing into gray-brown obscurity;
above, a hazy neon image blinking on and off
signals Frontera Frontera Frontera...

Lanchas tipicas de la ciudad de Tuxpan, Veracruz: photo by Pacomexico, 2008
Tlacotalpan, Veracruz: photo by Atuszka, 2007
On the road, Mexico (22.11.09): photo by Tom Raworth, 2009
Tlacotalpan, Veracruz: photo by Hajor, 2002
Coatepec, Veracruz: photo by Bernardo García Alonso, 1993
Blue Moon (Buenos Aires): photo by blmurch, 1.1.10