The old mesquite will fall in the future or no,
this poem jumps ahead and plays it in reverse,
like an old VCR whirs into the past and the tree
lifts upright, branches uncrack and unbreak,
the nopal unsplays at its feet and ungrows
smaller, unprickles, pads unpad and thinner now
and hundreds of tunas unfruit and the blooms
unblossom, the whole nopal unroots, disconnects
from sandy floor and reconnects to the trunk lifts
above the thornbrush anew, Berlandier acacia
nearby unleafs, and this couple of transsexuals, we
amble backwards stop and unlook, a river of small
ants comes out of the hole but also goes back in
and the nopal reduces in size again in its perch
at the crick of the trunk higher than three tall humans
in the air, angles and re-angles and yes ungrows
and ungrows and i untake a picture of that nopal,
all the pixels depixelate and the picture untakes,
you pull your hand down and unpoint and we both
look away from it, we walk in reverse back along
that path, move up over the levee through the gap
in the wall, further now from the río bravo flows
backward, upstream, silty water unsilts,
decontaminates, unclouds til it arrives back
to its millions of sources, the water flows uphill,
undrips in dewdrops, pearls of moisture on fir
needles in high mountains, clouds re-receive mist
and drops disintegrate into air,
humidity, a kiss
