Poetry for Border Crossing

Border Crossings

By Michael Carey

Who is this giant

crossing the campus

with a woman

on his shoulders and

a child screaming silently

in her huge cupped hands?

What is it that is pulling them

so hard, so determinedly

through the clearing in the trees?

Can't they see that the river

is dry here, that grass grows

where the Bravo should be?

See veins pop and strain

on his huge red ankles.

See the stalks of corn

he attempts to wade through

cut him and hold him in place,

making a monument of them,

a totem,

as he carries, like Christopher,

his poor, his starving, his weak,

toward the distant ring of white children

who will turn their calm faces

up and toward him when he arrives.