P O E T R Y
George Perreault
La Migración Across mid-morning fields, the cinder track fills with elementary blurs and shrieks as the children are turned out for the day, and mothers have gathered on the grass in what seems a harbor town to witness the ribbons, the smiles and praise while between the races there’s innocent gossip in approximately carefree ways, until under the elms, the pullover for semis bending east and west along the four-lane, drivers refill mugs at Allsups, swap stories and then among them, in a telltale green truck two men are sitting, glancing over papers: La Migra hovers with a raptor’s shadow and the mothers, a dusting of snow in morning sun, are soon but almost unnoticeably gone. They are no longer here, although inside the gym, outside of view they watch, listen to the feet, sus niños running the cinders, remember distant trains squealing in the night, and coyotes, always the coyotes—cristo obstinada en la cruz— while they ducked under wires whose teeth carved their backs into strips, traced their families’ names and drank their blood. They wait unseen, like their men in the fields noted but ignored, a staggered line of hats, stooped shirts, their sweat rising to the clouds, next month’s rain somewhere over the Gulf, and when at last La Migra has moved on the mothers drift back, talking as they will one day waiting in line, for there is a line always and everywhere, waiting in line for heaven.
