Poetry Archive

(In)justice for the (M)other

Children Without Borders, Quim Gil via Flickr: Creative Commons

 

A mother duck is

separated from her chick

in her search for food.

Encarnación is

a mother caught in a raid

undocumented.

Her duckling looks for

her, but makes his way without

his missing compass.

Eleven months old

Carlos is taken care of

by her family.

Lost and trying to

avoid the worst of the storm

she can’t make it home.

Suddenly, a judge

decides he’s unwanted by

his struggling mother.

A hovering hawk

steals his small body, talons

digging into feathers.

Accuses her of

neglect as she fights for her

son as best she can.

At last she returns

despairs at the empty nest

looks for him in vain.

But to no avail

in a system designed to

make her lose, she does.

It does not matter

where she looks, she knows her babe

is lost, was taken.

Her son’s adopted

his identity erased

by white kidnappers.

 

She is left in the

meadow alone, consumed with

grief from Nature’s wrath.

 

 

 

REFERENCE:  https://www.cnn.com/2012/07/18/us/missouri-immigrant-child/index.html

 


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Filed under: Poetry Archive

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Eloísa Pérez-Lozano writes poems and essays about Mexican-American identity, motherhood, and women’s issues. She graduated from Iowa State University with a B.S. in psychology and an M.S. in journalism and mass communications. A 2016 Sundress Publications Best of the Net nominee, her work has been featured in The Texas Observer, Houston Chronicle, and Poets Reading the News, among others. She lives with her family in Houston, Texas.