by Frederick Wilbur
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| Birds rest on concertina wire along the Rio Grande in Eagle Pass , Texas, Thursday, July 6, 2023, that has been recently bulldozed. (AP Photo/Eric Gay) Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott’s escalating measures to stop migrants along the U.S. border with Mexico came under a burst of new criticism Tuesday after a state trooper said migrants were left bloodied from razor-wire barriers and that orders were given to deny people water in sweltering heat. —AP, July 19, 2023 |
Along the helix
of razor wire
meant to keep
refugees stranded,
there are delicate spiders
spinning webs
that rainbow
in the early sun,
their snares
of a different will.
Frederick Wilbur’s collections of poetry are As Pus Floats the Splinter Out and Conjugation of Perhaps. His work has appeared in The Comstock Review, Dalhousie Review, Green Mountains Review, Hampden-Sydney Poetry Review, The New Verse News, and Shenandoah among others. He is poetry editor for Streetlight Magazine.