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| In memory of Joaquin Luna Jr.
18-year-old
Joaquin Luna Jr. took his own life in November 2011 in his
home in Mission, Texas. His parents reported he was depressed because,
although a very good student, he was receiving only rejection letters
from colleges and was also disappointed when the Dream Act failed
to pass through the US Congress. He did
receive one acceptance letter
after his death.
Image source: Tucson Citizen
|
He pressed the revolver
underneath his chin
and fired.
Its force
toppling
his forest
of feeling,
a wind storm
sapping his life
pieces now
splattered
on the bathroom tiles.
Quiet,
hear the dripping
of hope, the draining
of dreams for college,
a career in engineering. Blue-
prints on the floor.
His desk is neat.
Letters stacked
upon it ask,
Are you a citizen?
The steely word –illegal?
Illegal, illegal
echoes
through the rooms
ricocheting
off his parents,
brothers’ grief.
The only response,
of puffed-up politicians,
Build a wall, build a wall, a wall!
America shoots another
one.
A native of New Jersey, Sandra Sidman Larson
is a retired manager and leader from the nonprofit world in the Twin
Cities of Minnesota who has lived and traveled coast to coast and across
the seven continents for work and for adventure. She’s been writing
poetry for a quarter century and most recently she was selected for the
Foreword Program at The Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis, a program
established to assist promising writers produce a manuscript for
publication. Along the way she has seen her poems appear in magazines
and journals and she also has three published chapbooks. In 1996 poet
Naomi Shihab Nye nominated her for a Pushcart Prize.