CARL AUERBACH
BORDERLAND
1
GETTING THERE
Sooner or later, in the middle of your inevitable journey from
(say) New York to California, or Rwanda to Uganda, but always
and definitely from somewhere to somewhere else, you will discover that
the paved road has disappeared, the painted white divider that marks off right from left
is gone, the lights that bound the dark have been shot out, leaving only
an orange dusty road with wound-size potholes in the earth’s damaged skin,
gaps that you must navigate and risk cracking the axle of your SUV and being there
forever or until the arrival of some unlikely good Samaritan.
There will be a sign that reads “No Man’s Land” to notify you that you are nowhere
now, neither somewhere nor somewhere else, neither in one country nor the other.
2
GETTING BY
Don’t be proud. Don’t try to be brave. Hire a guide if one does not appear. He will know
who to bribe, how much to pay, whose ass to kiss and whose to kick, what to expect and why,
the bread-and-butter business of the borderland. Do not pet the three-legged dog
that hobbles up to you and whimpers, or give money to the orphan children who swarm at you
like flies. They will possess huge appetites that you can never hope to understand or gratify.
Do not employ the man who offers to help you with your baggage, to put it on a cart and wheel it
to where he says it has to go. Afterward he will walk away saying “I am coming,”
You will wait for his return for days until you realize he meant “I am going.”
3
GETTING OUT
They will tell you that your baggage weighs more than regulation
so that you have to leave behind half of all that you have with you:
the clothes that you had planned to wear, the books you meant to read,
maybe even your computer. The relics of identity that you used to wear like skin.
Eventually it will end. The guard in the crisp, blue uniform with the AK-47
will scan your passport, verify your registration, and wave you on and through.
“Welcome to somewhere, sir,” he will say and it will all be over, except that you
will have a pothole of nowhere in your brain, that you will always need to navigate around.
CARL AUERBACH: I live in New York City, where I have a private practice of psychotherapy. Now that my four children are grown, I am pursuing a long-standing interest in poetry. I have had three poems and a short story nominated for a Pushcart Prize. My work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Adirondack Review, Amarillo Bay, Avatar Review, The Baltimore Review, Barzakh Magazine, Bayou Magazine, Blue Lake Review, Brink Magazine, Burningword Literary Journal, The Cape Rock, Chrysalis Reader, The Coachella Review, Coe Review, Colere, Confluence, Corium Magazine, The Critical Pass Review, descant, The Distillery, Eclipse, Edison Literary Review, Eleven Eleven, Euphony, Evansville Review, Evening Street Review, Forge, Freshwater, The Green Hills Literary Lantern, The Griffin, G.W. Review, Hawaii Pacific Review, Ink In Thirds, Licking River Review, The Lindenwood Review, Louisville Review, The MacGuffin, The Minetta Review, Nimrod International Journal, North American Review, OffBeat, Oregon East, Organs of Vision and Speech Magazine, Passager, Pearl, The Penmen Review, Permafrost, Poem, Poydras Review, RE:AL, Red Wheelbarrow Literary Magazine, Reed Magazine, Rosebud, The Round, Sanskrit, Schuylkill Valley Journal Of The Arts, The South Carolina Review, Spillway, Studio One, Talking River, The Texas Review, Third Coast, Tower Journal, Westview, Willow Review, and The Write Room.