There is a ghostland somewhere near
Of spirits of the Earth
And aging oxygenated dirt
And there is hope and there is hate
But no one ever shows up late
The border of Mexico
is exactly
1,006 miles away
from the hospital
where I was born.
Which means that
had I been born,
say,
1,007 miles
to the south
my destiny would be
aligned under very
different
stars.
O holy martyr
when you crossed the river
to be beaten by
the state troopers of the Promised Land
O redeemer of Dixieland
when you felt the clubs touch
skin and blood and blood touch dirt
Today the statues float in rivers and finally the citadels of false reverence are beginning to fall
What does it say about us
that we are obsessed with protecting the statues of the long-dead
Cities, I wonder what you must have looked like to my grandparents and my great greats
when they steamed into Detroit from Hungary or New York Harbor from Russia and India
