A THORN OUT OF TEXAS

A THORN OUT OF TEXAS(L DOUGLAS ST OURS) A THORN OUT OF TEXAS

Even before 911,
moving back and forth across the border
almost always meant trouble for my wife.

The cluster of adobes under the cottonwoods
resembled pimply blisters due for a popping
though a few were shriveled
to little more than an acne scar
on the cholla choked desert
of extreme southwest Texas,
brains broiling we looked down
on the silent oasis village of Shafter
where the only discernible movement
was the flimsy shadow of stray popcorn cloud.

Battered and scorched
from lemon turned mustard
the mute plank doors
hung but no longer swung
as we made our way
to a school bus missing its wheels
where boots without soles
hid among the mesquites
like thirsty munchkins
along a bleached to bone trickle
some fool or faker called a river.

The plaster wall
of the down on its luck
post office - general store - gas pump - flag pole
long ago shed its butterscotch paint
exposing spider web cracks
across the warped slats
from the baked bald roof
to the hot bare earth,
squinting into the sun
we headed north on a narrow dust break road
not quite connecting
the animal hump buttes
swollen like boils
on a wind wrecked world.

Pygmy high split timber telephone poles
doubled for fence posts for barb wire
strung clear on down to old Mexico.
A wooly tarantula as big as my hand
took its time crossing the highway
dividing the barren cattle spreads
from the empty oil empires
where only the pronghorns grazed.

Just one long abandoned road
until around a blind curve
a trailer straddled the median
between wood horse barriers
and two uniformed men wielding rifles forced us to stop.
It was a border patrol road block
and my Maryland tags made me a standout stranger
what business would I have roaming
the hard, wild parts of this frying pan land.

And when the guards spotted my island girl wife
sweet and petite in the back seat
their suspicions boiled over into a feverish assumption
that they had bagged themselves an alien smuggler,
so they ordered her out of the car
and into the trailer for a rude interrogation
meanwhile I rooted around in the trunk
and found her naturalization documents
as our little daughter began to cry.

After releasing us and allowing us to pass
my beloved was shaken up for a good fifty miles,
the only way I could think to cheer her up
was to veer off and stop south of Alpine
and then let her pick out and cut loose a flowering barrel cactus.
I crammed it into the trunk
and suffered a thorn prick under my thumb nail
that turned infectious and discolored within a day.

In vain I tried to reassure her
that her brief seizure by the government
was no worse than a year earlier
when at Niagara Falls we strolled into Ontario
over the international peace bridge
and she was barred from walking back into America
until I could sprint out to the parked car
and produce her papers again.

She was not amused
and said she was sick of the desert
I lied and agreed
but before we made it out
we had to traverse and endure
the noxious petroleum fumes,
the spindly derricks,
the seesawing grasshopper pumps,
and the throbbing pain and pus
of that stubborn thorn
stuck deep inside my purple thumb.

By L DOUGLAS ST OURS
April 2010