OK.
And this is the last poem I'll read,
and it's in The Border Simulator.
I guess I should say also, if you
don't know The Border Simulator, it's a bilingual book.
So it has the English on the left side
and the Spanish facing.
So you can play around and jump around
to both English and Spanish.
I worked with an amazing translator, Natasha Tiniacos,
a Venezuelan translator.
And her poems in Spanish--
my poems in Spanish that she translated and wrote,
are amazing and fantastic.
So please check those out.
OK.
This is called "You Look at Crossers,
You Look Just Like Them."
And I guess I coined a word called Rossing or Rossers,
and these are people who cross the border to shop at Ross.
[LAUGHTER]
Dress for less, yes.
"You Look at Crossers, You Look Just Like Them."
The border simulator is constant practice
at Rossing, shopping at Ross.
What to say when crossing?
Am I right?
And Ross loss prevention is always
side-eyeing you, the merchandise.
You might steal a badly seamed pair of bedazzled jeans
but Ross loss prevention cares more about you,
stealing yourself.
Borders accept crossers as payment now.
The cryptocurrency of the border is the crosser
And they are in crypt like boxes
As they cross, and soon they are released
Back from the crypt.
If customs knows the crosser, they can't check their papers.
But it's hard not to know everyone in this narrow corridor
where corridos tuba from every car.
It's so loud that it's quiet.
You also don't get old.
You just give up on the bridge, waiting
next to the same Daewoo for hours
and you roll down your window and start swapping stories
about other wait times:
On the Mexican side, customs had enough of the line and shouted
to all the cars waiting. " ¡Bocina si no existes!"
"Honk if you don't exist!"
And all the cars honked,
you couldn't even hear your passenger.
Thank you.
[APPLAUSE, CHEERING]
See what I mean?
Warlock.
[LAUGHTER]