Bandera
I offer nothing in return, and in offering, receive.
My mouth is a river
whose current bears no words,
but the silence is not of my making.
Notice the streets and their grey
hunger, the rain and the sun
passing by much
as one passes an unopened door.
That question, unvoiced.
That shiver preceding the icy touch.
You may deny my motives.
You may deny my existence and
the very notion of shape unto form.
I offer nothing, and in offering, receive.
“Bandera” first appeared here in May 2015, and was subsequently published in The Basil O’Flaherty in November 2016.
O at the Edges 
Still one of my favorites.
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Oddly, I don’t miss much about Texas, but Bandera will always stir feelings in me. Mostly good!
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I think I’ve told you—I rode through there on my motorcycle with a couple of female friends. We stopped and shopped and everyone we met there commented how much nicer we were than the Harley riders.
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i preferred Bandera during the week, when no one was there. Ha.
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The group I was with was more interested in riding hell bent for leather on the wide sweeping and well-maintained roads around Kerrville than they were in partying. We ride sport bikes and don’t do a great deal of rabble rousing. I’m not sure I’d recognize a rabble. I do remember when the women I was with stopped to shop there how surprised the shopkeepers were that we were motorcyclists. We didn’t fit their preconceived notions.
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There are some wonderfully scenic and curvy roads in that area! And I’ll bet you could have raised some real rabble had you been so inclined. If they only knew!
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If only!
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🙂
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