Backpacks heaved on shoulders,

my sister and I stood early mornings at 6:45 waiting for the school bus.

We were first in line always.

First to watch the blur of men in paint-stained shirts and tan boots stomp past..

Rápido, Rápido.

To hear trucks rumble down cracked cement avenues

toward green cash that fed five mouths... halfway.

Stamps, vouchers (hardly) made up other

halves and

b i t s.

 

180 days a year I stood. never saw freedom in their eyes.

Because crossing borders doesn’t give glimpses at Lady Liberty.

 

Mommy and daddy never got a glimpse either.

Snack shacks and bread-slice dinners and echos of angry customers were mirrors of the future

of one car, no home. West Coast California, 1985.

of the click-clack of cash registers for mommy.

of the click-clack of poker chips for daddy.

Dreams were lost like the cash he gambled under bright lights.

(Where do dreams deferred go, Mr. Hughes?)

 

Maybe they lose themselves

in those words gasping, choking to mold English to foreign tongues.

in those creases of wrinkled hands and frowns

and lonely indigo mornings cooking breakfast for the kids.

and then work. again, of course. always work.

 

Who could know the pain I saw, I felt

on bus-stop days.

 

Just another immigrant story, they say.

Just another immigrant story.