Wetback of eternity

I am         undocumented worker of eternity,
illegal      crossing the border of a dream.

My passport of existence expired.
Without proper documentation            my bones are worthless.

I travel        night in a crowed truck without headlights.
I sleep in the backrooms of the law.

My American dream became
the hell of my exile.

He comes out of shadows, they point at me and say,
when I appear from the toilets of my job.

It doesn’t matter.  I celebrate like a wetback
the passage of wind in desert altars

and contemplate infinity in the place
where the saguaros stood.

Sergio A. Ortiz is the founding editor of Undertow Tanka Review. His collections of Tanka, For the Men to Come (2014), and From Life to Life (2014) were released by Amazon.  He’s a two time Pushcart nominee and a four time Best of the Web nominee.  His poems have been publish in over four hundred journals and anthologies.