the Blue Ridge Mountain chain wraps around my father’s words / freight minimum wage assembly line / the big city pull, they say/ 

I can tell by your hands that you haven’t prayed enough /  mine  crumbled obelisks  / under a searing sun   overgrowth through the dry cracks  /  are your fingers glued at  /  the tips?  

Are the clouds really moving, Tía, / if a man hangs in Pepin Park / if laws render brothers and sisters / stateless? You said: Faith, Always.  / I want to have faith / the South and DR are not fingers / from the same hand, / not a father and son stitching borders / of sugar and blood  / at the cost of men like Tulile / hanging in Ercilia Pepin Park.

It begins this way.  Running from a wooden shack a shade / of heaven; a zinc roof pummeled with stars. The mars earth / going on and on. The heat gliding along your neck like a lover.  / A blistering fever. Above everything: a blood moon.