[Intro]
[Instrumental: nylon-string guitar plays the motif against a slow floor-tom heartbeat.]

You drew me straight through bending ground,
Then built a wall to hold the sound.
But rivers turn and families track
The oldest roads. The border sings back.

[Verse 1]
[Baritone: the border]

I crossed the ranch, the town, the grave,
The chapel step, the irrigation wave.
One cousin woke on either side;
No one moved, but countries divided.
The fence grew tall where cattle passed,
A slogan welded to the mast.
Men posed beside the newest stack;
The desert watched. The border sang back.

[Pre-Chorus]
[Female mezzo]

You call me fixed; the river bends.
You call them strangers; they are friends.
You call the wall a final fact;
The dust lifts up and answers back.

[Chorus]
[Both]

The border sings back through the wire;
Dust has a tongue and stone has a choir.
You draw me straight, but the rivers bend;
Families cross where your slogans end.
Build me higher—I answer in fact:
The border remembers. The border sings back.

[Verse 2]
[Baritone]

A bottle emptied in the heat,
Small shoes were found beside the sheet.
A mother learned a case-file name;
A child learned numbers behind a name.
The camera turned the wall to stage,
The crowd was sold a measured rage.
Behind the speech, a private pact:
Cheap labor entered through the back.

[Pre-Chorus]

[Female mezzo]
The field wants hands, the speech wants blame;
The owner profits either name.
The wall performs the public act;
The payroll leaves a passage cracked.

[Chorus]

[Both]
The border sings back through the wire;
Dust has a tongue and stone has a choir.
You draw me straight, but the rivers bend;
Families cross where your slogans end.
Build me higher—I answer in fact:
The border remembers. The border sings back.

[Instrumental]
[Cello and nylon guitar flow across alternating six- and four-beat measures like a river refusing a grid.]

[Bridge]
[Baritone: the border]

I am not justice, vice or virtue.
I am a line your treaties drew.
Do not place your conscience here
And call geography your fear.
Your choices built the camp and track;
Do not blame the border answering back.

[Break]
[Quiet ensemble]

The wall knows fingerprints.
The dust knows names.
The river keeps
No party claims.
The sun does not
Inspect a face.
Only people
Make a cage.

[Final Chorus]
[Both]

The border sings back through the wire;
Dust has a tongue and stone has a choir.
You draw me straight, but the rivers bend;
Families cross where your slogans end.
Build me higher—I answer in fact:
No wall can edit the labor it attracts.

[Coda]
[Both]

The border remembers. The border sings back.

[Outro]
[Baritone]

The wall casts shade.
The footprints track.
The air moves south.
The border sings back.