I drove south towards Mexico, passing manikin cacti & hitchhiking serial killers.
Even the overinflated sun grew disgusted with itself, clockwatching, dreading the
Duration of its day-shift. My affections reside inside my afflictions, or the opposite—
For which dual-citizen does not have an explosive device strapped under his hobo
Garb? My classmates voted me Most Remarkable but I did not recognize myself
At the reunion. My border town destination—Nogales, Mexico/Arizona—pony up I did
In advance for my room. A woman who did not speak English collapsed at my feet—

My Spanish only earned me a generous high school D; fortunately she began mouth-
Foaming & convulsing. Grocery bags she’d been lugging turned weightless, defying
Gravity, & her daughter—I assumed it was her daughter—having witnessed epileptic
Seizures before, knowing she wasn’t vital enough to control her Madre’s flailing body,
Insert a popsicle stick into the foamy mouth so she wouldn't swallow her tongue or bite it
Clean off, barked orders at me, pleaded with wild eyes, treated me like any convenient
God. I did not pick up her panicked Spanish but do recognize human urgency anywhere.

I thought after high school I’d become the kind of man who would wise up, learn
To swallow my own tongue, or bite it when appropriate. Instead I held the disoriented
Woman in my bruising arms—prayed for an ambulance, a doctor in the crowd to step in,
But the crowd thought I knew what I was doing, viewed me as remarkable. The
Authorities, not ungratefully, pushed me aside; my audience applauded, leaving me
Suffocating in the delicious smell of garlic from a food stall that straddled my country—
& this one, south of what I know, where my afflictions co-exist with my self-affections.