Alejandro Escudé
THE MIGRANT CARAVAN
It is not politically correct.
It does not prevent smoking.
It doesn’t watch its calorie consumption
Or its intake of meats.
It doesn’t care if it culturally appropriates,
Or if it’s inappropriate in any way.
The migrant caravan
Needs to feed its children.
It needs to get its children off of violent streets,
But the migrant caravan doesn’t care
About GMOs or the Second Amendment.
The migrant caravan doesn’t care about 9/11.
It never saw the planes fly into the first or the second Tower.
The migrant caravan doesn’t have power.
It doesn’t have power at work.
It’s doesn’t have power within the government.
It doesn’t have work.
And it doesn’t really have a government.
The migrant caravan doesn’t care about carpooling
Although the migrant caravan could be said
To be made up of one large carpool.
The migrant caravan does not consist of dog persons
Or cat persons. It does not take vitamins
Or pills to fight depression and anxiety
Though it may feel depressed
And/or anxious. It has been suffering
from the hard traumas and the soft traumas, too.
The migrant caravan might be carrying
A man with erectile dysfunction or a woman
Who suffers from constant migraines.
It might have dozens and dozens of children
With ADD and some with dyslexia.
Mental illness, a skull that can be undone
Like a Rubik’s Cube, walks with the migrant caravan, too.
The migrant caravan doesn’t maintain a Twitter account.
The migrant caravan doesn’t understand
What Donald Trump expounds in English.
The migrant caravan doesn’t have the time
For Trump’s mistakes in etiquette.
It doesn’t scrutinize every single press release.
The migrant caravan isn’t a beast.
It is a city of God, moving.
The migrant people are God’s chosen people.
It rotates with the Earth.
It is the cruel animals and the sky.
The migrant caravan is the day and the night.
The migrant caravan doesn’t discuss poetry,
Or see or hear, or speak eloquently
About modern art or classical music.
But the migrant caravan
Does dance and make art and write poetry.
The migrant caravan will not cease at the sea.
It will continue walking, like thousands of Christs,
Over the top of the suddenly calm water
Toward the apostles that await them
In triad after triad of fishing boats, hoping
To haul them inside nets made of the fibrous skin
Of human hearts miraculously still beating
And bright as bright red stars.
—from Poets Respond
__________
Alejandro Escudé : “Personally, I find some aspects of contemporaneous American life scarier than any danger present in the streets and neighborhoods of Latin America. Examples include Trumps Hitler-like rise, the Left’s insistence on absolute political correctness, the obsessive focus on the war of the sexes played out in politics and Hollywood and, like, every damn place else, the fact that rents are stellar-high and apartment managers treat young children as if they were the carriers of some deadly disease, that ageism is rampant in the workplace, teachers get paid a pittance, and homeless people are multiplying on the sides of highways. Roger Stone. Omarosa. Alec Baldwin. Megyn Kelly. Stephen Miller. Sarah Silverman. So, let the caravan come , I say.” (web )
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