Brother Joe Zam Poem by RIC BASTASA

finally brother joe zam
the legal researcher from Dipolog has made it at last, to
Las Vegas, now with cousins, all struggling to make both ends meet

on a down economy, what a wrong timing, i think, something's wrong
with the weather up there, and he's not smiling and groping with the coldness
of the melting snow

but there is no coming back now, wife and daughter are there
all for the mighty dollar, and the motto is always, as before
no retreat no surrender

tightening belts and taking all the efforts
knowing what hardwork is from a to z, from
the beginning to the day till the beginning of another day

no one knows what a legal researcher can do but i know, i know,
it will be onward Chicago, and there will be plenty of work to choose:

gardening, gasoline boy, apple picker, nursing aide, hotel boy,
caregiver, and whatever

another wife perhaps, another coldness within, and as always and ever
shall be

away from home, and the last choices:

a) homesickness
b) broken home

he can take b) .