“Take only what you can carry!”
- What each Nisei hears to this day
Their frail house wares,
Bed slates, pillows, chairs,
piled against the pole
in the space between the side walk
and the street.
It was usable rubbish day.
The City’s men would truck
it to the recycle yard.
Someone else had set it there,
as they could not.
Lived in that Section 8 apartment
around the corner.
I had only been gone a week.
Who had peeped to La Migra?
No more would I hear her shout
“Callate!” from that 2nd story window.
No more musical language from kids
perennially at play in the stone yard
beyond my back fence. No more balls
to throw down from the garage,
or toys she trooped with them
around the block to retrieve.
“They’re in a holdin facility,”
their next door neighbor said,
“before they send them back.”
Back where? Those kids were born here.
I saw her bring the last one home
from County Hospital.
The neighbor mumbled something about
a new law, and turned away.
He would not look at me.
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