Walking, Walking By Kimberly Vargas Agnese

Esli squints, holding sun
between the little lashes
outlining her eyes

the color of black paint around the picture of a gun
on the concrete blocks in San Pedro Sula

following Abuelita’s shoes
past people whose mouths are full of corn
and black beans her family has no fire to cook.

Walking, walking…

Le diremos al Señor Trump
to promise they will work hard,
plant the cabbages and the sweet potatoes,
help USA be great.

Above the machete teeth of the razor fence
there’s a patch of blue in the clouds,
the shape of a little pond outside a casa
where she picks peach sage and roses,
spies on black-bellied whistling ducks
making nests in the thicket—

the hats of the men watching her across the border
the color of dusty plantains,

eyes switching back and forth

like her sister’s had
when she stumbled through the kitchen door,
her skirt torn into palm leaves
broken off in a storm.

Walking, walking…

Above barbed wire, purple clouds bruise the sky.
Hondurans throw bottles and rocks at soldiers.

Rain explodes down plastic tents,
across the swollen belly of Abuelita’s granddaughter
fills footprints around Esli’s pond with gun powder, tear gas and mud.