After Eden. Harold J. Recinos

the girls drenched in

      tears who had the good sense to

      join a labor union went on strike

      to fight like gods to win their living

      wages and safer times on the assembly

      lines. they even said the strike was

      the kind of prayer Jesus heard loud

      and clear enough to make him take a

      stand against the dreaded boss’s fingers

      that rested too often on their Puerto

      Rican hips. for years she worked in

      the toy factory listening each day to her

      broken English making sweet sounds like

      the grandmothers who came to America

      young to give children their best made

      dreams. one day without prior notice,

      the mother realized these kids feed oatmeal

      before school were living a history better

      than her years spent wrinkling in a South

      Bronx factory.

      The Raid

      this morning last night’s

      workplace raid is over, the

      waiters are busy sweeping

      sidewalks in the dim light

      of a broken moon, a new day

      starts them thinking about

      rounded up friends in federal

      cages who for thousands of

      miles will sing the beauties

      they are denied and the foul

      ignorance bruising them once

      again. frightened, the locked

      up call out, bitter tears dropping

      to the jail cell floor from their

      brown cheeks, their lungs inhaling

      the stale air that discloses the hate

      chiseling grave stones in the dark

      with Spanish names. the customers

      start arriving for a first meal and

      the waiters left behind wonder how

      long the country will feed on lies

      carefully wrapped like bible story

      gifts!

      The Spot

      I sat behind the little park tree

      like it was in the rain forest in

      the ascending light of a chilly

      morning. the Fort Apache police

      parked their car next to the bloody

      stain at the other end of the patchy

      grassed park, where a young mother

      moaned, a priest prayed and the

      kids on the block who passed the spot

      on foot each day claimed they saw

      an Angel with long hair looking over

      it. I waited quietly for the beauty of

      the block to come walking down the

      street, speaking loudly about glorious

      things to come, pointing to the paths

      calling us to walk with enormous strides

      to the very end of the road where neighborhood

      church bells ring. whenever tired of the

      misaligned world, I would go to that spot

      calling on South Bronx spirits to make

      dark voices still. I often laughed with

      the browning leaves blown by the wind

      in that little park that was hidden from

      the rest of the city and was comforted by

      its sickly trees and song birds kept just

      right for my barrio streets.

      Latino Heritage Month

      at the border, the guards

      have already forgotten this

      month belongs to the broken

      who are walking to the barrios

      to anglicize a new generation

      of names, survive its gangster

      violence, make homes far from

      odious gatekeepers, and dream

      with their new American children

      beneath the Northern stars. on these

      shores, the men who run the government

      long ago proclaimed this month a time to