zine39

Forrest Gander Las Canchas
For the photographs of Dan Borris

alligatorzine | zine

Take me, for example, he said. My left leg being shorter, the pitch favors me running this direction.

Wind.
It carries
the
sound of
distance
through
the goal
posts.

With
these
six
sticks
we
consecrate
the
field.


After the cows chew the grass down, we’ll play, he said. After the rains pass.

The cross bar falls from one upright and the other looks like a katydid leg.

When they don’t contain the game, they frame a local world.

Near the old church, in front of the municipal building, beside a house, at the edge of a lake, just beyond the stone fence bounding the village….

Like a big eye, he said. Watching for us to come kicking a ball.

Through the center circle, dragging toes to trace a midfield line, they make the symbol for infinity.

It’s funny, he said, we always meet here. Where no one lives.

Not a bad place to sit for lunch, in the packed dirt below the crossbar. There’s no grass, so the cows don’t loom and splash you with urine.

The frame of the goal, like a cocked ear. Listens for us.

Everyone picks up stones because the playing field belongs to everyone.

Looks strong enough to hold me. One way to find out.

We had one that was metal and through-bolted, but it rusted-out the second year.

The skinny cows pass under, regardless.

Instead of a net, a line of trees. A rim of rock. The hills terraced with corn and onions.
  A dirt road.

The posts being of different lengths, the goal resembles a letter h.

And on the other side, bounded by the tracks of a pickup truck.

Those
aren’t
bee
boxes,
behind
the
goal
posts,
are
they?

We
plant
it in the
spring,
but
we play
soccer
on it
after
harvest.

Too close to the soccer field, a little store called El Atorón, The Obstruction.

This material is © Forrest Gander

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