Summary

“Tomorrow I Leave to El Paso” - The poem is written in a single stanza. The speaker refers to having a visit with his brother-in-law who has cancer; to visiting a town where his father once lived; and to meeting with his sister Sarita, the two of them meeting “after decades in separate families.” When he hears “the clock snap” he walks his dog, taking “a different route to soothe the mind / it is the same one but I am hopeful” (58).

“Borderbus” - This lengthy (three-and-a-half page) poem is written partly in Spanish and partly in English, with the Spanish being translated into English throughout the poem (as opposed to other poems in the collection, in which the Spanish version appears first, and is complete, followed by the similarly complete English version). The poem is in the form of dialogue, with the...