AT THE BORDER Derick Burleson a pile of machetes and hoes higher than your head most bloodstained and every thirty seconds or so another body pounds down Rusumo Falls in the pool at the bottom they bob back and forth so bloated and gray you might think massacre had created a new race beyond the border those farmer who piled these tools of food and war sit for days waiting for a kilo of beans the rains begin again it's that time of year nobody drinks from the river on land the bodies seem wings of laundry bright cloth spread on the Akagera bank to dry flat as if the flesh inside were already sinking eager for the river in the water these pale balloons float easily north to Lake Victoria so putrid even crocodiles stay away behind the border every day while the gods hover like starving birds Achilles still pursues Hector round the city walls and makes very sure when he catches up he waits long enough to hear the voice pleading before he swings the blade