ISSN: 1941-4137
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
Angelica A. Mercado, is an artist and poet currently residing in Sioux Falls, SD. She is a Mexican-born, America-raised "Nepantlera" who writes and creates art about the experience of the 'in-between." She has had works published in the Briar Cliff Review, Cream City Review, Roanoke Review, and Acentos Review.
Also by Angelica A. Mercado:
On Being Woman (In Ten Parts)
Poets Resist
Edited by Cody Stetzel
September 12, 2018
Edited by Cody Stetzel
September 12, 2018
Freedom is a Fleeting Thing
for Claudia Patricia Gomez Gonzalez, murdered on
May 23rd, 2018 by US border patrol
It is hard,
To imagine,
Your face half dirt, half blood,
Pressed against U.S. soil.
The only way this land will claim your kind.
This is what happens you see?
The agent reminds the three survivors,
As he places handcuffs on their brown, sun-scorched skin.
A misdemeanor turned murder,
When he refused to acknowledge
That your eyes
Held a story
That many will never get to hear.
Two weeks ago, you’d promised mamita,
A better life back home,
Once you reached Virginia and your lover.
On the television screen,
Your mother begs for your body
To be returned
‘Where it belongs.’
Princesita,
The world mourned you.
Still does.
We all have moments of silence,
When rage consumes us.
I often wonder if our voices still have sound.
Some days,
When silence fills the air,
I think about the children in cages,
Their cries asking for any sign of familiarity,
From two lands who cannot raise them to take flight.
One they fled from, and the other only knows how to spit them back.
Did you feel what freedom feels like, before your eyes turned safety white?
Are you finally at peace?
I know San Juan Ostuncalco will always think of you,
Maya Nam hero.
This is what happens you see?
When it becomes too easy to,
confuse human with animal
Pointing aim at life,
At anything that dares to interfere
With manifest destiny.
Claudia’s dream did not belong in this America,
Only in fictitious history textbooks,
Making white man the hero
Of every scenario,
Disguising violence with promises of ‘greatness,’
Lady Liberty has turned her back,
Using the pretext of fear to close the golden gates, this is no New Colossus.
In America, migrant dreams are flightless birds.
In America, you, the migrant cannot dream, lest you are dead.
This is what happens, you see?
When the world becomes devoid of empathy,
Filling in blanks with new names of the murdered,
Of the lost,
Of the forgotten.
To the ones in power: we demand action.
Words mean nothing
When Claudia cannot read, cannot see, cannot live.
When motherless children have dreams
Of light-up sneakers,
And survival.
Ejected from courtrooms,
For their profane silence
When their mouths have yet to hatch the word mama.
This is what happens you see
When borders become militarized weapons,
And bodies become just numbers,
Claudia was only 19 years old.
Some nights,
I think I’ve made it.
In the moonlight,
My skin is iridescent,
Its pearly whiteness
Teases me with privilege.
I shake it off,
Remember Claudia,
Remember the children,
Where are the children?
Poets Resist is published by Glass Poetry Press.
All contents © the author.
All contents © the author.
