Tijuana

Tijuana

I sit in the air-conditioned bus,
 staring out the window
 at a world that is as foreign to me
 as I am to it.
Ramshackle huts, looking like toy cardboard
  boxes, fill the hills and mountains.
Brightly colored, yes, but frightening
   in their intimations of mortality,
   the impermanence of life.
The bus driver points out
   a house on the side of the mountain,
   built by an artist,
   in the shape of a naked woman.
I wonder –
   was he making a statement of colonization,
   of oppression,
   of Mexico's subjugation under the heels
   of so many conquistadors?
Of the many crimes and sins perpetrated
   on her people?
How her culture was shaped, at times,
  by the needs of others,
  and not of her own;
  not permanent, but as mortal
  as the houses on the hill?

Or, maybe, he just liked the idea of a house
   in the shape of a naked woman.