The negative isn't flipped. Each sign reads in reverse, as if it is sighted from your rear view mirror.

Standing in the center of the Rio Grand, whether one swivels to the south or the north, these identical signs are planted on either bank.

"welcomebackhome" (painted backwards on scrap boards, found 60 miles north of the border), refers to this phrase writ in Spanish on a banner strung every year in a Northern Mexican town. The citizens are welcoming the flocks of monarch butterflies who migrate back and forth, to and from the United States and Mexico.

"That banner should be strung on the US side of the border, facing Mexico" states an American friend. It isn't, yet.

The International Boundary Waters Commission claims that the border is always at the center of the river. Sometimes the water shifts its course and when it does, the nation's edge shifts too. They say that an American boat can touch along the Mexican shore as long as its owner's foot does not touch the Mexican earth. One can loosely interpret the body as a boat, a floating craft, and so a sign is sunk into the opposite bank without the laborer ever touching dry ground.

January 1, 2010. Between San Antonio, Chihuahua, Mexico and Candelaria, Texas, United. States.