> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://hyperallergic.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # One Poem by Daniel Borzutzky - URL: https://hyperallergic.com/one-poem-by-daniel-borzutzky/ - Published: 2018-12-12T12:00:03.000Z - Updated: 2025-11-24T16:24:16.000Z - Description: Our poetry editor, Wendy Xu, has selected one poem by Daniel Borzutzky for her monthly series that brings original poetry to the screens of Hyperallergic readers. - Author: Wendy Xu - Tags: Poetry, Hyperallergic Poetry, #wp, #wp-post, #image-position-hidden, #Import 2025-11-18 14:37 (2018) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2018/12/adriana-varejao-2.jpg) Adriana Varejão in Interiors at Gagosian Gallery, Beverly Hills, 2017 (photo by Elisa Wouk Almino/Hyperallergic) ## Wall They build the wall because they need privacy It is a curtain wall with a dead load and a wind load and a seismic load and a blast load It is a wall to help us find peace in a violent world It is a wall of debt It is a wall of accumulation It is a private wall built with public funds It is a sleeper wall with suspended slabs and floor joists Poor kids are buried in the wall When they trade bodies for petroleum they slide them through the wall When they trade bodies for vaccines they slip them over the wall When they trade bodies for state secrets they dig them under the wall I’ve been treated very unfairly by this wall My mouth has gone missing near this wall My teeth have gone missing near this wall My body has disappeared into a brick in the wall they built around the wall I meet a slaughterer at the wall He is kind to me He brings me water when I am thirsty He brings me food when I am hungry He brings me something to kill when I am lonely He brings me something to love when I am lonely He brings me something empty when I need a moment of blank There is an endless hole in the wall I spit the wall out of my body I hide in the wall I become the wall There is a murmuring ghost in the wall The ghost of a refugee they shot against the wall There is a foreign agent in the wall There is an underdeveloped man in the wall There is an underdeveloped culture in the wall There are cheap people who wear cheap shoes and cheap shirts made in cheap factories protected by a very exquisite wall There is a device in the wall A sensor to detect movement along the wall or near the wall There is news that comes out of the device in the wall Bleep bleep bleep bleep bleep bleepbleepbleepbleepbleepbleepbleepbleep There are cannibals and pacifists in the wall Their balls are to the wall There is a fly on the wall We bang our heads against the wall There is a brick structure that divides one property from another It is a garden wall It is a fire wall It is a consumption wall It absorbs the excess bodies from the surrounding area while also enclosing them It is a wall that wears many hats It is a climbing wall with gelatinous membrane along its outer cavity They piss money up the wall They nail us like jelly to the wall and we dream of a wall of philanthropists with knives for eyes The handwriting is on the wall *Do not climb this electrified wall* We trade cards with bureaucrat-slaughterers on the wall They drive us up the wall We break the fourth wall We bounce off the wall It is the strongest wall in the emptiest part of the valley \* \* \* Daniel Borzutzky’s latest poetry collection is [*Lake Michigan*](https://www.amazon.com/dp/0822965224/?tag=hyperallergic-20&ref=hyperallergic.com)(Pitt Poetry Series, 2018). He is the author of [*The Performance of Becoming Human*](https://www.amazon.com/dp/1936767465/?tag=hyperallergic-20&ref=hyperallergic.com) (Brooklyn Arts Press), recipient of the 2016 National Book Award for Poetry. His other books include *Memories of my Overdevelopment* (Kenning Editions, 2015); *In the Murmurs of the Rotten Carcass Economy* (Nightboat, 2015), and *The Book of Interfering Bodies* (Nightboat, 2011). His translation of Galo Ghigliotto’s *Valdivia* (Co-im-press) won the American Literary Translator’s Association 2017 National Translation Award. He has translated poetry collections by Chilean poets Raúl Zurita and Jaime Luis Huenún. He teaches in the English Department and Latin American and Latino Studies Program at the University of Illinois at Chicago. *Readers are encouraged to submit 3–5 poems as a PDF to Wendy Xu for consideration at* [*poetry@hyperallergic.com.*](mailto:poetry@hyperallergic.com)