I was struck by the formatting of a lot of the poems and how that gives so much meaning to the essence of the poems. One such poem is "Beast Meridian." It lays on the page, looking like the horns of the beast to which a number of Villarreal's poems refer. The two distinct sides of the poem read just as powerful as one poem as each side does if you read it by itself. The poem refers to a splitting of body and of land that yet lives and breathes under one starry sky that holds the constellations that are her ancestors.

"every star pattern                 is a watchful grace

find their names  &  the split will heal  & return the land

to that lineless open..."

In "Border Semiotics" the poem is divided with each stanza appearing within borders meant to symbolize, as the title suggests, the symbols and signs that divide us, like walls. The title of each stanza though, appears on the other side of the "border" symbolizing a divide between meaning and title, truth and lie, what is spoken and what is meant. The single word "title" represents a symbol that Villarreal fleshes out and calls out what the real meaning of the stated symbol really is. Naming the American doublespeak and its damaging and bothering effects on the human flesh and soul.

"Rags of clotted blood on bone on Walmart tee-shirt threaded with work on raw hand..."
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Illegal"

and

"Tattered corpse disintegrates on XY axis flesh ripens purple a flush rot & tongue a plain of flies
if you drown in the river blessed are the meek
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Invisible

The formatting on the page is so key to Villarreal's work but no less important are her word choices and phrasing in conveying her message and meaning. In "Bestia," a poem akin to "Beast Meridian," is instructions given to cross back into a country once their own: "this land/has/always belonged/to you." The instructions seem to be given to a small child to move by night, "in the moon take/this pink comb" and follow explicit instructions about what to do, who to trust, and who not to trust and of how colonization and capitalism has made them prey on each other, "nice men are never nice/when they/are starving."
The poems are powerful in their message of seeking home, the body split like the country, and the deep soul damage that occurs when a people is violently split from their motherland.