home on earth. here on this corner
where indifference habitually makes
its bed frail dark bodies crying from
afar are rarely asked to give witness.
on the streets where hands are joined
by the poor dressed with bells like lepers,
there will be no rest until the bitter wells
are sealed tight and the high-minded blather
is thrown into fiery depths!
The Protest
I knew the time would
come to take up the poor’s
quarrel at City Hall, talk with
vigils to elected officials about
the bare bones economy scarcely
putting roofs over our heads and
dread on kitchen plates. I knew
the time would come to fling harsh
Spanglish words in the bright light
of day till Angels came looking brown
like us with beautifully spread
wings to make the deaf politicians
walk down the municipal steps
to listen. I knew the time would
come to lean on the shut doors
locked with the bullshit spinners
inside of them and open them wide
enough to break their hinges—that
time is now!
Factory Work
the toy factory where
his mother went to work
was then the only place
hiring broken English
girls with sleepy brown
eyes and dark faces born
on someone else’s land.
she assembled toys with
smiles peeking each day
through her lips, and making
defamatory gestures behind
the white foreman’s back who
had thick disorderly hands. one
afternoon the girls drenched in
tears who had the good sense to
join a labor union went on strike
to fight like gods to win their living
wages and safer times on the assembly
lines. they even said the strike was
the kind of prayer Jesus heard loud
and clear enough to make him take a
stand against the dreaded boss’s fingers
that rested too often on their Puerto
Rican hips. for years she worked in
the toy factory listening each day to her
broken English making sweet sounds like
the grandmothers who came to America
young to give children their best made
dreams. one day without prior notice,
the mother realized these kids feed oatmeal
before school were living a history better
than her years spent wrinkling in a South
Bronx factory.
The Raid
this morning last night’s
workplace raid is over, the
waiters are busy sweeping
sidewalks in the dim light
of a broken moon, a new day
starts them thinking about
rounded up friends in federal
cages who for thousands of
miles will sing the beauties
they are denied and the foul
ignorance bruising them once
again. frightened, the locked
up call out, bitter tears dropping
to the jail cell floor from their
brown cheeks, their lungs inhaling
the stale air that discloses the hate
chiseling grave stones in the dark
with Spanish names. the customers
start arriving for a first meal and
the waiters left behind wonder how
long the country will feed on lies
carefully wrapped like bible story
gifts!
The Spot
I sat behind the little park tree
like it was in the rain forest in
the ascending light of a chilly
morning. the Fort Apache police
parked their car next to
