We’ve written about day labor as a subject in local art work and a feature film. Here, day labor is the subject of a poem. Walter Dionisio, a theater director in Stamford, Conn., took part in a bilingual reading during last month’s Port Chester Fest. He mentioned to me that he’d written a poem about immigrants, and I asked him to send it along. Here is his poem, with an English translation by Marcela Rojas.

“Palomar”

Vemos desde la comodidad del cuero

al mar de ojos vigilantes.

Hombres acorazados con verguenza de hielo.

Tristes en la soledad esperanzada

de unas rasgantes sobre cristales veloces.

Estatuas vivientes petrificadas de hambre,

entablando soliloquios para espantar recuerdos.

Corren como reces al matadero de las migajas

anudandose a los andenes como prolongacion del asfalto.

excluidos del pasado y del presente,

companeros del sol y el improperio,

complices del frio y la pesadilla.

Acuclillados o parados, exhibiendose a la mejor subasta sobre ruedas

Musculo y juventud para la consumicion de la sobreabundancia.

Y para ellos, nada; la fuerza y el mendrugo.

El elogio hipocrita o la prepotente amenaza.

Hombres cetrinos recogiendo pedazo a pedazo en cada esquina

el sueno “americano”

We see from the comforts of our leather

The sea with its vigilant eyes

Men covered in icy embarrassment

Saddened by their pending solitude

Of torn fingernails over fast crystals

Living statues petrified in hunger

Establishing soliloquys to scare off memories

They run like cattle to the slaughterhouse of crumbs

knotting themselves to the docks like an asphalt extension

Excluded from the past and present

Companions of the sun and of insults

Accomplices of the cold and of nightmares

Crouched or standing, displaying themselves to the best auction on wheels

Muscular and young for the consumption of superabundance

And for them nothing; strength and a crust of bread

A hypocritical eulogy or a predominant threat

Sallow men picking up piece after piece in every corner

the American dream.