Migrant Workers By Tezozomoc

There is movement

Happening in these hills.

Where cardboard,

Plastic

And wood

Are recycled

into shanties,

And Victor Francisco Rodriguez Torres jokes,

pointing to an upside-down camper shell

serving as a makeshift bed,

"This is Mexican Science."

The golden poppies flower

from the peaks of North County

to the sands of Oceanside.

The San Luis Rey River

Siphons smooth seeping water,

from the Palomar Mountains.

The migrants hunch together,

with the cat-tail reeds

and the valley quail

quietly avoiding the water.

Jose Lopez and Procoro Hernandez

gather discarded drip irrigation tubing,

and bamboo

to lash

a kitchen frame

covering the house

with layers of discarded

fertilizer bags.

At night,

the windblown willows,

flanking the San Luis Rey River

churn cries

of boys and girls

reminding--fathers,

of when they hid tears

behind pumice faces

and bleeding hearts

while leaving villages

in Oaxaca, San Luis Potosi, Puebla.

On Sundays

Felipe Arriega

slashes aluminum cans into candle holders.

While a few yards down

Jesus Alvarez

Arranges candles

In the hollowed-out trunk

Of an Oaktree

Where La Virgen de Guadalupe

Resides

Jesus prays

at the shrine

for protection

All shanty towns

have a rear exit

into the river

the hillsides

to avoid La migra

and hoodlums

"The river rose

and washed us all out

last night"

utter

the migrants

as they gathered

around a campfire

trying to dry their clothes

and joking

"Tomorrow we'll build

Tenochtitlan!"