A Road in Florida

It will remain nameless, these several miles of Florida asphalt.

The name doesn’t matter. Nothing good will be said.

There are many roads anyway, straight as a cut from a razor,

slicing through dry palmetto–ocean and swamp equidistant.

Nobody lives on this road. They just stay there in rows

of two-story apartments, stacked like coffins after a flood.

Cars drive fast on this road. There is nothing to see.

Except for life moving slow, not much happens here.

They walk in groups of three or four, the ilegales, on this road.

They are brown (all shades) and they are from someplace else.

They are without rights, except the right to work (illegally)

and burn in the Florida sun.

They carry cash to send home. They are rarely alone: protection

from those who would “Squat a Guat”, which sounds bad

and it is.

They won’t call the police. Better to take a beating,

better to give it up than get caught without papers

and be sent back – –

away from here, away from hope,

away from the dream, away from this road.