Making a Fist

    For the first time， on the road north of Tampico，

    I felt the life sliding out of me，

    a drum in the desert， harder and harder to hear.

    I was seven， I lay in the car

    watching palm trees swirl a sickening pattern past the glass.

    My stomach was a melon split wide inside my skin.

    "How do you know if you are going to die？"

    I begged my mother.

    We had been traveling for days.

    With strange confidence she answered，

    "When you can no longer make a fist."

    Years later I smile to think of that journey，

    the borders we must cross separately，

    stamped with our unanswerable woes.

    I who did not die， who am still living，

    still lying in the backseat behind all my questions，

    clenching and opening one small hand