Making a Fist

"We forget that we are all dead men conversing with dead men" 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