[[link removed]]

PORTSIDE CULTURE

ROAD SIGN ON INTERSTATE 5  
[[link removed]]


 

Robert Peake

*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

_ Poet Robert Peake asks us to consider what a road sign says about
the lives and needs of migrants. _

,

 

_San Diego, California_

They are holding hands, or rather, their silhouettesare joined at the
arms like a chain link fence.

 Their bodies lean forward, like italic letters.They are running: the
man is pulling the woman,

 the woman is pulling what must be her child,and the child is lifted,
by the speed, off her feet.

 It is the same type of sign that might containthe antlered shape of
a generic black buck,

 or tell drivers that the road could be slippery when wet.It is a
warning sign, it says: watch out for this.

 Every time I pass, I scan both sides of the freeway,expecting to see
a family of three, gathering

 up loose belongings, timing the cars, preparingto run across eight
lanes of high-speed traffic.

 I have never seen them, this desperate family.I only know their
shadows, how they tilt toward

 the bright yellow space in front of them, scramblingto reach the
outlined edge of the thin metal sign.

 I have never wanted anything this much, for myself,let alone to pull
those closest to me into flight.

 There is so much I could say about growing upon the border of
Mexico. It is not the corrugated

 fence, or even the river of sewage, that definesthe scar that joins
one world to the next,

 but a one-hundred-foot width of sun-soft asphalt,streaming with
commuter traffic, day and night.

 The man is pulling the woman, the woman is pullingher airborne
child, whose pigtails flail back.

 On the other side is the ocean, salt marsh and a beachthat stretches
north, into the source of the wind.

 They are holding hands, and smelling the salt in the air.At night,
their pupils contract as the headlights expand.

 What begins like a distant starlight grows to a spotlight,a
floodlight, a wash of whiteness, and engines made of wind.

 Then reddened, like coals, like dying suns, the lightsrecede, a
river of cherry redness, a syrup of taillights.

 The man is pulling the woman is pulling the child,who rises as
though winged in a blaze of light.

_Robert Peake says: “I transferred out of the computer engineering
program at U.C. Berkeley during the height of the dot-com era to study
poetry instead. They made me sign a form stating that I had considered
the implications of my decision, and would not try to beg my way back
in. So began my understanding of what it means to be an artist.”_

* Immigration
[[link removed]]

*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

 

 

 

INTERPRET THE WORLD AND CHANGE IT

 

 

Submit via web
[[link removed]]

Submit via email
Frequently asked questions
[[link removed]]
Manage subscription
[[link removed]]
Visit portside.org
[[link removed]]

Bluesky [[link removed]]

Facebook [[link removed]]

 



########################################################################

[link removed]

To unsubscribe from the xxxxxx list, click the following link:
[link removed]