poem where no one is deported by José Olivarez

poem where no one is deported

now i like to imagine la migra running

into the sock factory where my mom

& her friends worked. it was all women

 

who worked there. women who braided

each other’s hair during breaks.

women who wore rosaries, & never 

 

had a hair out of place. women who were ready

for cameras or for God, who ended all their sentences

with si dios quiere. as in: the day before 

 

the immigration raid when the rumor

of a raid was passed around like bread

& the women made plans, si dios quiere.

 

so when the immigration officers arrived

they found boxes of socks & all the women absent.

safe at home. those officers thought

 

no one was working. they were wrong.

the women would say it was god working.

& it was god, but the god 

 

my mom taught us to fear

was vengeful. he might have wet his thumb

& wiped la migra out of this world like a smudge

 

on a mirror. this god was the god that woke me up

at 7am every day for school to let me know

there was food in the fridge for me & my brothers.

 

i never asked my mom where the food came from,

but she told me anyway: gracias a dios.

gracias a dios del chisme, who heard all la migra’s plans

 

& whispered them into the right ears

to keep our families safe.