102

and the boy
 
                          played
 
             with
the   mother’s

 
 
                                                    fluvial hair

           
 
                                     black

 
 
             her
 
     mosaic-frame

 
 
                                                    burnt umber

the daughter                   just

 
 
                        out of
 
                                       arms reach

 
 
                                                gone already

they found the boy in time to save him. many years
from  now  someone will tell him the awful truth of
all that was lost.               the bruises on their  backs.
shoulders. waists. how two women. mother.  sister.
carried him.   gave him their water.   on that day he
will learn   all there is  to  know  of brown  and gold

of

                          flesh

                                                                 and

             sand

Copyright © 2022 by Joaquín Zihuatanejo. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on November 1, 2022, by the Academy of American Poets.

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“This poem is for Juanita and Silas before they were my grandparents. When they were young, scared, and beautiful. For the crosses they bore and the river they crossed. The poems in Occupy Whiteness are meant to capture the beauty and brutality of the immigrant experience. This hybrid erasure was inspired by a true story. When they found the boy in the desert, the temperature was 102 degrees.”
—Joaquín Zihuatanejo