Let’s get on a bus to Mexico.
Where are we going?
Oh,
To change some lives.
Wake up!
Wake up, sleepy head,
There are some hungry hearts
To be fed.
¡Chicos ya están mis padres!
It is cool,
Just enough for breath to freeze in
mid air,
until it is made into glass,
and then shattered by the sun’s wrath.
If it is so chilly,
Why are their eyes igniting
El hogar de mi corazón.
Who should tell them not to press their faces
Against the rusty, rickety fence?
Anywhere but there.
Too many places.
¿Me querrán ellos?
Their grimy fingers steal mine
Into their own,
Our pulses coming into perfect
Aline.
Me llamo Josué
Too many smiles,
Me llamo Maria
I think I’ll stay here a while,
We run to the playground,
The sun beats down on their round faces,
And the wind does not make a sound.
¡Corre, corre!
They spin in circles,
Dresses grabbing the wind,
¡pato, pato, ganso!
Throwing their little heads
Back in laughter
Ay dios mio
Thankfully they never think about
What comes after.
We brought them some presents
¿De Los Estados, para migo?
Their chapped chubby lips
form grateful smiles,
so innocently happy
only for a simple sheet of stickers.
The stickers fall off of the pages,
Just as time falls from the sky.
Their faces, covered in smiling colors.
Abrazo, Abrazo, yo quiero ser su niño
I will come back for you one day
Never let that smile slip away.