McAllen, Texas, June 2018
Last night a woman crossed the Southern border—
heat haze and scrub, to armed men with blank faces
and rumors of a presidential order.
She had a baby with her who adored her
and sang him lullabies of safer spaces
last night. This woman crossed the Southern border
leaving her town of ruin and disorder
because she trusted others knew what grace is,
and hadn't heard the presidential order.
She didn't fear the men who came toward her,
explaining she would be one of their cases
last night. This woman crossed the Southern border
and begged asylum. First, the men ignored her,
then warned the women to stay in their places
while they enforced the presidential order.
No mi hijo! the refugee implored, her
stricken mind confused by legal phrases.
Last night a mother crossed our Southern border.
We took her son by presidential order.
Anna M. Evans’ poems have appeared in the Harvard Review, Atlanta Review, Rattle, American Arts Quarterly, and 32 Poems. She gained her MFA from Bennington College and is the Editor of the Raintown Review. Recipient of Fellowships from the MacDowell Artists' Colony and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and winner of the 2012 Rattle Poetry Prize Readers' Choice Award, she currently teaches at West Windsor Art Center and Rowan College at Burlington County. Her new collection Under Dark Waters: Surviving the Titanic is out now from Able Muse Press, and her sonnet collection Sisters & Courtesans is available from White Violet Press.
