by Daniela Castro

A mother leaves,

A child chases her trail

Desperation is the nanny

her remittances failed to pay

As for the child,

to leave their country

is to enter into space:

A registration with no guarantee

They trek into the open graveyards

Of bodies that shed backpacks, photographs, shoes,

clothes,

where flowers seldom grow,

and terror seldom dies

Where trains are known as beasts

and a river fills with fury,

And La migra responds,

“Beware the illegals”

As they capture and cage

Their suits mark one of the few instances where

green

means hide

And the ground becomes a comforter---- clenched,

for pressure is always the greatest patrol

Some make the cross,

And others are marked away from existence

And yet a package is handled better

than a human-

both given a tracking number

Seeking the love of America,

A child chases her trail.

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