What she sees through her binoculars is not wild horses,
but a child bent to the ground examining a butterfly
drying its wings of dew in the risen light.
The thin sliver of smoke rising from beyond the ridge
might as well be the salty smoke of Sodom in ruin,
though she guesses it is an immigrant campfire.
But the analogy holds when she thinks about the emerging news
about Costa Rica, Honduras, and Nicaragua.
Her family reads only Facebook and forms opinions accordingly.
Her dog perks up, sniffs the air, woofs.
Use to be, she would take a case of bottled water
to the migrant trail the coyotes blazed.
But the sheriff and border patrol now arrest people
for aiding and abetting the crossing of that invisible line.
She thinks not providing water to the thirsty
should be a crime against humanity.
She improves her Spanish
in an adult education class at the community college.
She knows she will vote for a new sheriff
in the autumn elections.
copyright © 2019 Kenneth P. Gurney
Umflop 