Borderline Justice
And he laughed, Sergio did, and they taunted the Man, the policías with their
Golden stars pinned to their chests, like hearts,
beating with
Entitled Purpose, guns rattling at their sides. But Sergio and his amigos only had Words, words they flung, as young boys are wont to do when they have a long
Stick and a Rattler appears across a small ravine, a fissure, in the sun-baked earth, coiled and
hissing, angry at the world
simply because he was born to slither on his belly and
rattle his angry heed.
The police men, they bantered en inglés in a culvert made of concrete that was neither Made in the U.S.A., nor a Producto de Mexico, but
both; poured together in the same
Vat, mixed, with rock from the Sierra Madre mountains, and the Sierra Nevadas, and sierra madre means mother saw, and she did, she saw Sergio leave early that
day, a Saturday, he left to not cause a problema, she said to him, mother-brows
raised in an imperative and question all at once, as all mother-eyes are wont to do when
their little boys need to roam on baked earth. She grabbed him by his ear and gave a
Tender kissing on his still-soft cheek, even though almost a man at 15,
Sergio was. He stuffed his mouth with a sweetbread and she told him to stay away from the diablos who walk along the lines with no lines, the
place where devils
with gold stars for hearts and rattlings on their belts watch and wait forlittle boys to come ‘round and play.
He Burst out into the already earth-baking
sun to roam, and his madre, she felt the
Stinging and rattling
in her chest as all mothers are wont to do when their little boys leave; she saw,
saw him leave and the thundering in her chest
beat out a melody that was not for a
Desert snake, but for curious little boys, who prodded to see how close they
could come. The concrete culvert has no lines, no skin, and spoke the same
tongue, as all humans are wont to do when they are first birthed out of their
mothers, with no lines, and no borders, just human and skin and hearts without stars.
Young boys’ voices echoed as they reached with sticky words toward the Golden-starred police, slithering inside the concrete
tube in no-man’s land, where there is no law or
Line to cross or uncross, no border of mercy in that desert
Place. And so Sergio and his amigos, poked and jeered at the devils with stars
slithering on leather boots,
echoes of laughter and then
Hissings of a strike. The rattling
sounds echoed through the tube with no lines, only the blending of
Mother Earth-rocks and soil, birthing young boys, running out of her as the strike sang through concrete and
Burst, as a strike is wont to do, into the back of Sergio’s
skull; Sergio, who is almost a man, who was, then was not,
as he ran.
Before the strike’s echoes reached her front door, his mother’s
eyes ran and ran, as mother-eyes are wont to do
when their little boys’ skulls have been
Burst, struck from behind. Her little boy ran, then fell;
his mother’s tears ran then fell.
The same tears all mothers are wont to
shed
whether they hail from the Sierra Madres or Nevadas, the same — human
waters that carve sun-baked earth-stone into ravines and fissures that separate the boys
from the rattlings of danger, men with stars in mother’s rocky culvert
there to protect all mothers and all Little boys
who would be men,
but only if
they reside on the right side of Mother Earth’s
mountains of the desert,
under our human sun,
under our
shared
blue sky.
— J,A, Carter-Winward
From cnn.com:
“The Supreme Court on Tuesday took up the case of a 15-year-old Mexican national who was shot to death in 2010 as he cowered behind a pillar in Mexico, by a US Border Patrol agent standing on American soil.
The family of Sergio Hernandez is seeking to sue the border official for their son’s death. They say the agent violated Hernandez’s constitutional rights.
The violent shooting was caught on cell phone video and sparked outrage because fact that Hernandez was unarmed.” — CNN.com
The facts of the shooting are not in dispute. The dispute is whether or not the Border patrolman should or will face consequences based on the location of the shooting.
The court case is not about the death of an unarmed, 15-year-old boy. — jacw
