I found you not as I left you,
Hiding away in the dark.
On a long journey home,
to a never ending sleep.

Your door tightly shut,
while many pass by making light conversation.
You wait patiently, patiently for someone to accept you,
to look upon you as you are; I wait.

The speeches are made, the pleasantries woven.
There are many who do not understand what lies behind that door.
They walk in and out, by and by; I wait.

The room clears and as the last person walks away the veil is shut.
Your door is opened as my heart drops and the blood courses through my veins.
I see you for the first time in what seems to be forever.
There you lay, asking for acceptance.
For so many are unable,
but I, having received your grace, are ready.

You ask me as I gaze upon your mortal wound,
"can you accept me as I am?" "but, of course!" I say.
For such is the way you had taught me,
and this duty was none but my own.
One last intimate moment,
acceptance of your pain,
acceptance of your reality, our reality.
 I touch your cold hand, your cheek, your hair,
I see your scars.
You are lifeless.

Though this would often be thought of as such a gruesome act.
One that should scar me for life,
burning images of ones life taken of their own cognition.
It is no such thing. It is what we are.

See there will never be anything like us.
We were and are a phenomenon.
We rode the stars and touched the heavens.
We held the answers for the weary and the keys to heaven.
We galloped into the sunset, riding like a hell bent rebel, destined to rule.

We owe each other this reality,
we need this last moment alone.
And I accept you, and close the door, forever.

I stay and make sure things are in order.
You are lowered into the dark.
As I watch I say goodbye,
to the man who made me from clay.
To the mythical demigod who conquered my childhood dragons,
to the only one who would see me through in such a manner,
To my hero.

So Mexicans are Taking Jobs from Americans

O Yes? Do they come on horses
with rifles, and say,
Ese gringo, gimmee your job?
And do you, gringo, take off your ring,
drop your wallet into a blanket
spread over the ground, and walk away?
I hear Mexicans are taking your jobs away.
Do they sneak into town at night,
and as you’re walking home with a whore,
do they mug you, a knife at your throat,
saying, I want your job?
Even on TV, an asthmatic leader
crawls turtle heavy, leaning on an assistant,
and from a nest of wrinkles on his face,
a tongue paddles through flashing waves
of lightbulbs, of cameramen, rasping
“They’re taking our jobs away.”

Well, I’ve gone about trying to find them,
asking just where the hell are these fighters.
The rifles I hear sound in the night
are white farmers shooting blacks and browns
whose ribs I see jutting out
and starving children,
I see the poor marching for a little work,
I see small white farmers selling out
to clean-suited farmers living in New York,
who’ve never been on a farm,
don’t know the look of a hoof or the smell
of a woman’s body bending all day long in fields.
I see this, and I hear only a few people
got all the money in this world, the rest
count their pennies to buy bread and butter.
Below that cool green sea of money,
millions and millions of people fight to live,
search for pearls in the darkest depths
of their dreams, hold their breath for years
trying to cross poverty to just having something.

The children are dead already. We are killing them,
that is what America should be saying;
on TV, in the streets, in offices, should be saying,
“We aren’t giving the children a chance to live.”
Mexicans are taking our jobs, they say instead.
What they really say is, let them die,
and the children too.
–Jimmy Santiago Baca, 1977