Love poem
Those who expanded the Panama Canal
(And were classified as “silver roll” and not as “golden roll”),
Those who repaired the Pacific fleet at California bases,
Those who rotted in the prisons of Guatemala, Mexico, Honduras, Nicaragua by thieves, smugglers, scammers, the hungry.
The always suspects of everything (“I allow myself to send to the interfect him by suspect esquinero and with the aggravating one of being Salvadoran”).
Those that filled the bars and brothels of all the ports and capitals of the area (“The Blue Grotto”, “El Calzoncito”, “Happyland”).
The corn planters in the middle of the jungle,
The kings of the red page.
Those who never know anyone from where they are,
The best craftsmen in the world,
The ones that were sewn to shots when crossing the border,
Those who died of malaria, the stings of the scorpion or the yellow beard in the hell of the banana plantations.
Those who cried drunk for the national anthem under the Pacific cyclone or the northern snow.
The arrivals, the beggars, the marihuaneros,
The guanacos sons of the great whore,
Those who were sorry could return,
Those who had a little more luck.
The eternal undocumented,
The hacelotodo, the vendelotodo, the comelotodo,
The first to take out the knife,
The saddest sad in the world,
My compatriots,
my brothers.