CROSSINGS
The Monarch flies from México
in a sliver of sunlight.
Alert and calm,
coyote trots across a busy intersection.
Hungry people push themselves
along the dusty road.
Trails radiate animal auras,
tufts of hair.
Scorpions, lizards,
cling to rock face.
Geese leave what they know,
rush to routes of migration.
Carrier Pigeons return with dirty feet.
They huddle together.
Iron doors sweep shut,
after entry to the gated community.
A woman travels light
with her backpack,
desperate to move on
before the borders close.
– First published by The Bitter Oleander
La Virgen de Las Calles
She stands on the
busy street corner
selling delicate red
and white roses
hugged by baby’s -breath
and luminous cellophane
resting in a
once discarded
plastic bucket.
She understands the innate
beauty of roses,
their fragility
their fragrant hope
as they grow slowly
from bud to
emerge
embracing change,
as they flush into
full bloom.
She knows of
piercing thorns
and truth,
of crossing
barbed wire
borders.
She understands
the prickling sting,
the aculeus
of being an outsider.
She wears a large
sweatshirt with USA
emblazoned in block
print across her chest
but she misses
Mexico and the
small town she was
raised in.
A red and green
rebozo hangs down
upon her head shielding
her from the flugent sun,
a gift from her mother,
a reminder of home.
People stride past her
lost in their own thoughts
hustling to work,
on pressing errands,
wandering down the tangle
of the Los Angeles
landscape.
She is La Virgen de las Calles,
waiting with a
heavy heart,
full of yearning,
dreaming of
new horizons,
a fountain of
humble tenderness
and abounding love.
La Virgen de las Calles
comprehends the
nature of roses,
their vulnerability
their need for nettle.
