Border-Dweller Love
Border-Dweller Love
after Gata Cattana’s, Con Las Manos
It is a special force, the way border-dwellers love because their lovE defies physics. Their love is an antenna at the heart of
the desert. Border- dwellers love by loading their truCkbeds. A Tetris game of toys and clothes. A bicycle. A washing Machine. A
mattress. They love in the dawn where time is fReer, the line is shorter,and the border-cops are cold. Even if they’re not cold.
Border-dweLlers love through the phone, through The video call in a frozen screen. Border-dwellers love without meals shared
or selfies pressed cheek To cheek. Border-dwellers lovE with the dollar. They love with each Western Union transfer. Even
when there is no Western Union transFer. Border-dwellers lovE on Facebook. They love on WhatsApp. They love by
watching the same fire burn across a split horizon. Even when there is no fire. BorDer-dwellers love with the free journey of a
smoke-filled sky. They love with the fireworks on new year’s, The bullet holes in the shed. Border-dwEllers love each other
through the worry of dreams. The nightmare about an earthquake, about a rEd leaf behind a father’s ear. Border-dwellers love throuGh
the missed call, the missed message, the cut phone line. Border-dwelLers love by the way of gossip drowned in cicada song.
The cousin on drugs. The cousin gettinG off drugs. The Cousin back on drugs. Border-dwellers love because they can’t afford
to be mad at each other. Even when they are mad at each other. Border-dwellers love in a present's refraction, always nostalgic,
always suspicious, always scheming, always beyond the law. Preparing for when there is no law.
2024 PATCHWORK Poetry Fellow
Anna Flores is a border-dwelling poet and writer born in Nogales, Arizona, and raised in West Phoenix. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Arizona State University. You can read her most recent published work in Red Tree Review, The Nation, and Huizache Magazine.
2024 PATCHWORK Film Fellow
Laura Asherman is a documentary filmmaker, sculptor, and Director of Ethics and the Arts at Emory University. Her recent work explores the Anthropocene through documenting humans’ relationships with animals. Interested in pushing the boundary of documentary, Laura employs stop-motion animation and elements of absurdity to address pressing social issues. In 2023 she earned an MFA in Experimental and Documentary Arts from Duke University, where she participated in an anti-racism fellowship at Duke’s Kenan Institute for Ethics. In 2022, she directed Crisis of Substance, a Southeast Emmy-winning PBS documentary about the opioid epidemic in Georgia. Through her production company, Forage Films, Laura has directed and shot documentaries aired on PBS, VICE, and HBO. Her independent films have played at RiverRun, Maryland, Sidewalk, Atlanta Jewish, and Cucalorus film festivals, among others. When she's not making art, you can find Laura on the dance floor.