Tim Z. Hernandez

SINGLE PARENT SOLILOQUY (& THE JOY OF KITES)

Who has time for poetry anymore? I’m writing this as I’m walking.

There is muzak on the loudspeakers of the dentist’s office, and I must make poetry of it, if I am to make

anything at all anymore. Somewhere outside, in San Jacinto Plaza, teachers have gathered to protest, they want to occupy.

Somewhere here there is always a protest.

And it’s usually happening

when I am occupied. So, I’ve decided

to protest on my own. I declare out loud, to no one, I will make the appointment for this pain in my gut! But I will fail at making the appointment.

I am boycotting this house!

My mother used to say this, and now I see why.

Some days I catch myself writing simply to remind myself, I am a poet. This means I breathe like you do, only I have a compulsion to stop

and write it down. In case you forget. I write it down for both of us.

Single parent, raising two children— everything happens in singles now.

Poems in single lines. Line by line.

A slice of cheese.

Toilet paper.

A single free minute to jot this down. God, I hope this poem never ends,

I feel so alive. Which reminds me, here is what I wanted to tell you—

I took the kids to the park yesterday. We flew their kite. The day had wind. The kite soared. I mean, it really soared! Upon holding the end of the string,

I was overcome with the pull

of immense sadness. I realize this sounds stupid, but there’s something I’m trying to get at here.

I became aware that the kite too was tugging toward freedom. So, naturally, I had no choice but to let it go. My therapist says, letting go

is the practice. Who am I to keep anything?

I watched it sail over the rooftops

and blend in with the clouds, far beyond our vision. This did happen.

It wasn’t just a kite of imagination. Who’s got time for metaphors?

The kids screamed, cussed at me, actually, for doing this. Said they’d never forgive me, as they stormed back to the truck.

Hell yes, it was worth it. Nothing so beautiful as watching a kite sail off, untethered.

As watching your kids sail off, untethered.

Nothing so beautiful

as letting go. I’d do it again. Let go the string.

I’m doing it now.

I’m sure there’s a poem in this somewhere. It’s all I’m sure of. One day.

But that’ll be theirs to write.

UNQUALIFIED POEM

For Joshua Rubin

I.

Today is November 21, 2018, and last night

150 adolescent girls were transported

into Tornillo Children’s Detention Facility

because they do not qualify

to be released to their parents.

Thanksgiving is tomorrow, and I am writing to you

from my home in El Paso,

where I just had a mushroom omelet, coffee, and two figs

with a human who swore she loved me.

Where I can hold my son, Salvador, and kiss him now

if I want to. He might smell like old milk,

but this poem doesn’t care. Not like I do.

This poem—and its friends—will point its fingers

and deny this to be true. But right now

I have a combined total of $1.47 in my bank account

and there is nothing this poem can do about it.

I couldn’t sell this poem if I wanted to.

Even if I could, this poem would be indifferent.

It cannot march into the gates of Tornillo,

or croon to incarcerated children carols at Christmas,

demand 300, 800 be returned to their families.

This poem has no legs or mouth. You may argue

that it does, but has it ever sipped coffee in the blue rains

of Asheville, North Carolina, while in soft conversation

with a woman it was not allowed to fall in love with?

Have you ever been kissed by a poem? It’s true—

it cannot exist without you or I, but don’t mistake that

for caring. Because a poem has no heart. A child has a heart.

A poem is neither alive nor dead. It lives on white sheets,

or on the breath of you and I. But a poem itself

cannot breathe. It doesn’t qualify

as human. There are now 800, 1,800 children, cold

and huddled inside Tornillo, just forty miles away

from this poem, but it doesn’t matter, because this poem

cannot offer them their mother’s arms. Though it will argue

that it can. It may even attempt to stretch itself.

Or later, further down the road, decide to

celebrate itself and sing itself. It will ask you

to assume so much. But don’t let it fool you.

A poem will never caress you, even if it promises

all the love. Poems love to promise

all the love. But it’s incapable of it. Just ask the 1,200 2,000 unqualified

children inside Tornillo if poems care.

They might shrug. Children have eyes

and fingers, flesh and feet, with which they

kick soccer balls over fences. Soccer balls care

about as much as poems. Both are circular

and kicked around for sport. Both can hurl fences.

Right now 2,000 1,500 children are desperate

to make a phone call, holding on

for dear life. But this poem will never make

that connection. This poem is all talk —

don’t let it seduce you.

II.

My children live here in Texas with me.

Their mother lives in California.

This poem is incapable

of carrying them to her. It’s not a vehicle.

Today is now December 4, 2018

and they cannot touch their mother.

Not even with a poem. You think they haven’t tried?

Last night, my son climbed into bed with me.

We cuddled, and I rested my mouth

against the back of his head, inhaling him deeply.

In that short contact between

his scent and my nose, I could not help

but wonder how distance shapes us.

In two weeks they will fly to visit her.

My children are qualified to travel alone.

Days ago I took them both to Tornillo.

We met a man named Joshua Rubin — a

software developer from Brooklyn.

He’s been posted at the gates, bearing

witness for months now. I explained

to the children what this meant.

But why, dad?

Because accountability.

Someone who wasn’t there

will tell the story and get it wrong.

Joshua knows this. He’s left his job

to be here. For children

he does not know. Has never met.

Morning to night. He misses

his wife. Their longing is nothing

compared. One day these tents

will come down, and this land

will return to what it was. We cannot forget

the children who cried out

the names of their mothers and fathers

from the silent desolation of this desert.

Children who shat themselves

for fear of the faceless machine, who lost

their breath while standing in line,

an eternity, waiting to become qualified.

III.

Joshua Rubin documents:

Four BCFS buses were seen

leaving the airport, carrying

passengers They have arrived at Tornillo.

Hundreds more children carried in.

150 girls brought in as

prisoners last night.

They are heedless of my eyes on them,

they are unashamed, nobody besides

myself and a few others point out to

them that they are doing something

wrong, and I don’t know if they ever

doubt themselves. Do they even

suspect they are involved in a crime

against humanity?

IV.

It is now January 2019, frigid, 20’s at night.

Days ago, Joshua approached the fence

and spoke to a few children, but he was threatened

away by the guards. He tells us, each morning, just

before sunrise, you can hear

thousands of birds, cackling and singing

across the cotton fields. Nature has memory.

But let me remind you, the poem doesn’t care.

If it cared, as it often claims, it would grow legs

and walk off this page, hitchhike to

the Marcelino Serna Port of Entry,

and stand at the stone gates with Joshua Rubin.

Make itself useful. But this poem cannot

hitchhike because it has no thumbs.

No eyes. And to witness you need eyes to see,

ears to record. There are now 1,500 3,000 children

locked inside a prison at Tornillo, Texas.

Today is Tuesday, and you are here,

maybe on your couch, maybe at a café,

reading a book of poems. But this doesn’t qualify

as a poem. Joshua Rubin is perhaps a poem.

2,500 2,600 children kicking soccer balls

over a barbed wire fence is a poem.

This is a non-poem; it doesn’t care what you think.

It exists forty minutes outside of Tornillo

children’s prison, and it will not lift a finger.

Non-poems are like this. They will make promises

to but never deliver. It will go on

celebrating itself and singing itself.

It will assume you get these references.

Poems always assume you get their references.

Right now there are 2,600 2,800 children

being held captive in a prison, who do not qualify

to be reunited with their

mothers or fathers. Right now,

you are reading these words,

perhaps in your own home,

perhaps comfortable, near a

bedside lamp,

or at your kitchen table, a child

at your feet, concerned about

whether or not this qualifies

as a poem.