No mas

‘Laughter was our only wealth.’ ~ Carlos Bulosan, “My Father Goes to Court”

All these years, paisano, and it’s la misma
mierda de siempre: same old, same old,
and I don’t mean creative recycling. You’d think
by now we’d get a little more respect, a little more
credit, a little more of that bankable dream
for things we’ve actually done— My kumpadre
next door gets it. He’s not from the islands, but
like us, he knows (this is the way he puts it)
the trials of people of a certain pigmentation…
I might not be able to identify the birds that call
from inside the woods, that open their mouths all
at once from the inside of a dream; but I can see,
most vividly, how the purple asters slowly unclench
beneath overcast skies. The signs have been appearing
for a good long while. Just as Carlos wrote,
the cities are burning. The faithful are marching
with schoolchildren in the streets. The women
marrying women and the men marrying men
drink wine on the hillside. The citizens have pitched
their tents in the park to steal back the laughter
the rich tried to take while they thought they slept.

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.