Brown Hands

In light of the Governor of Arizona signing today a new bill that would allow police to check the identification of anyone they suspect of being an illegal alien, this poem seems prescient. However, this blog is about words and writing, not politics. I wrote this poem a few days ago, after viewing a few Mexicans walking along the side of the road, on their way to work. The rest is serendipity.

Brown Hands
Christopher Bogart

course brown hands
thrust deep in pockets of
baggy blue jeans.
they trudge along trails
once lined with cactus
now edged with congestion.
they balance on the edge
of our existence,
poor anomalies
in a land of plenties.
their lunches are
wrapped in the same
used brown paper
as their anonymous
brown lives.
they finger thread beads,
they pray for pay,
day labor,
anchor babies
in a world of maybes,
they dream
brown dreams,
not to be seen.