Gilberto Poem by Joe Bisicchia

I don't know you, your name, your face, but I know my own, not much different than you, you this likely 11-year -old Guatemalan decomposed, just another undocumented immigrant now of Texan earth, dead in the brush.

You likely crossed the Rio Grande wandering aimlessly from your land of birth hoping for freedom and its mountains of steel, stone and glass.

The phone number under your belt scratched is apparently like a prayer to your older brother. Your last Hail Mary. He awaits your joyous hello in a familiar language in a foreign Chicago. But little yet does he know you've crossed further, and later will be the one to welcome him to freedom. For unlike our bordered world which knows its margins, you now know of an endless homeland where angels know your name.



Published by American Story, Entropy,2017