8/8/2019 The Fifth Dream- Bullets and Deserts and Borders

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The Fifth Dream: Bullets and Deserts and Borders

by Benjamin Alire Sáenz

A man is walking toward me.He is alone.He has been walking through the desert.He has been walking for days.He has been walking for years.His lips are dryand crackinglike a piece of spent soil.I can see his open wounds.His eyes are darkas a Tanzanian night.

He discovers I have been watchingthough he has long ceased to carewhat others see. I ask himhis name, ask him whathas brought him here, askhim to namehis angers and his loves.

He opens his mouthto speak—but just as his words hitthe air, a bullet

pierces his heart.

I do not knowthe countryof this man’s birth. I only knowthat he is fromthe desert. He has the wornlook of despairthat only rainless days can give.That is all I know.He might have been bornin Jerusalem. He might have beenborn in Egypt. He mighthave been the direct descendantof a pharaoh. His namemight have been Ptolemy.

His name might have beenMoses. Or Jesus.Or Muhammad.He might have been a prophet.He might have been a common thief.He might have been a terroristor he might have been justanother man destinedto be worn downby the ceaseless, callous storms.He might have comefrom a country called Afghanistan.He might have been from Mexico.

He might have beenlooking for a well.

His dreams were made of water.His lips touchingwater—yes—that is what he was dreaming.

I can still hear the sound of the bullet.

*

The man reappears.It does not matterthat I do not want himin my dreams. He issearching through the rubbleof what was once his house.

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There are no tears on hisface. His lips still yearnfor water.

*

I wake. I begin to believethat the man has escapedfrom Auschwitz. Perhaps he sinnedagainst the Nazis or becausehe was a collaborator or becausehe was Jewishor because he loved another man.He has come

to the desert lookingfor a place he can call home.I fall asleep tryingto give the man a name.

*

The man is nowwalking toward a citythat is no longer there.

*

I am the man.I see clearly. I amawake now.

It is me. It has taken mea long time to know this.I am a Palestinian.I am an Israeli.I am a Mexican.I am an American.I am a busboy in a tall buildingthat is about to collapse.I am attending a Seder and I amtasting my last bitterherb. I am a boy who has learnedall his prayers. I am bowingtoward Mecca in a housewhose roof will soon collapseon my small frame.I am a servant. I shine shoes

and wash the feetof the rich. I am an illegal.I am a Mexican who hates all Americans.I am an American who hates all Mexicans.I am a Palestinian who hates all Israelis.I am an Israeli who hates all Palestinians.I am a Palestinian Jew who hates himself.

I am dying of all this knowledge.I am dying of thirst.I am a river that will never know water again.I am becoming dust.

*

I am walking toward my home.Mexico City? Washington?

Mecca? Jerusalem?I don’t know. I don’t know.

*

I am walking in the desert.

I see that I am reaching a border.

A bullet is piercing my heart.

© 2010, Academy of American Poets. All Rights Reserved.