Getting into the enormous-black ICE SUV splashed with snow and road-salts
He was wearing an aqua floppy-eared rabbit hat
And he had a Spiderman-backpack on
With a checkered black-white jacket
Surrounded by giants
And like any rabbit near danger
He looked scared, darting eyes
His diminutive smile, gap-toothed
Cherubic cheeks, olive skin
And yet a pronounced innocence, almost as if he was about
To receive his First Communion
And waiting in silence
But still too small
As big hands prodded him along
And his puppy-nigrine opal-eyes
Looked furtively and shyly about avoiding any gaze
An innocent timidity
From the bitter cold of Minnesota to the Texas desert
To a detention facility in the middle of nowhere
His family lawyer showed his simple crayon drawings
Scribbles showing his parents and siblings surrounded by
Crude-swirling razor wire, stick figures crying and frowning
Surrounded
And his preschooler gaze looking frightened upward
Inquiring about his mama
As he was shuffled along toward the unfamiliar
Amidst the murmur of federal agents
Mostly just legs to him
Like giant sequoia trees in a forest
Of adults
Who is to blame: NAFTA? Trump? Civil wars in Central America?
40 years of ineptitude in immigration reform?
As in Siqueiros’ Echo of a Scream
The crying shrieks of innocence everywhere
But mostly shocked into silence