Praise the smirk of teenagers at the jailers scooping up fugitive
soccer balls, jabbering about the ingratitude of teenagers at Christmas.
Praise the soccer ball sailing over the barbed-wire fence, white
and black like the moon, yellow like the sun, blue like the world.
Praise the soccer ball flying to the moon, flying to the sun, flying to other
worlds, flying to Antigua Guatemala, where Starbucks buys coffee beans.
Praise the soccer ball bounding off the lawn at the White House,
thudding off the president's head as he waves to absolutely no one.
Praise the piñata of the president's head, jellybeans pouring from his ears,
enough to feed three thousand adolescents incarcerated at Tornillo.
Praise Tornillo: word in Spanish for adolescent migrant internment camp,
abandoned by jailers in the desert, liberated by a blizzard of soccer balls.
SOURCE: Floaters: Poems, poetry collection by Martín Espada, W.W. Norton & Company, New York, USA, 2021.