The border mother,
Back with her family from Ohio’s
Green beans and red tomatoes,
Waits with her youngest
For the Migrant Program bus.
The yellow bus comes,
And the mother bends, kisses her daughter
And stands by while she steps onto the bus.
The daughter, but four,
Solid in Spanish and English,
Ready for books, Ohio and the border ….
And I yell over at the mother,
“Thanks for giving the United States salads,
And thanks for that wonderful daughter.”
“You’re welcome,” she yells back, and
She’s up the alley, the bus is down the street ….
Eugene “Gene” Novogrodsky, mid-December 2011
