America in the Year of the Pig

By Tiffany Troy

 

On the last day of the Seventh Month
of the Year of the Pig I clicked open the Adobe PDF,
typed my name,
drew my signature
on the loyalty oath denouncing
the country of my birth.


I have not missed the irony
or forgotten the Rabbit
in the Moon shining
upon Chinatown with its men-spits
and street defecation—
my hands taking peach blossom
branches perfectly aligning
them one by one
to those in line
around la Trampa
Table #5 as one after one
signed their rights
away and our cries
unheeded only branding
us as incompetent
or infertile like the two cows
with no milk
left as I pressed that frail
leaf and lit it on fire
to warm myself,
holding golden paws
in that Sakura Matsuri dance
before I learned
that I was la mestiza
no different from the little animals
who should be taught
a lesson before being sent
back to the crime-infested country
from which they came
or the alien who got off
scot free for fifteen
years before he was taken
away by ICE agents already waiting
there. Please come with me, they said,
what right does he have to be here?
they asked. But I remember
the warning: First they came
for . . .and then . . .I saw
I was the black pixelated
board no longer lit
as hives circle my body
and I carry his heavy
corpse as the pests sound
in the silence of the tree
songs as I dragged
his body away long before
I looked up
and saw that rabbit
in the moon
covered in silver
raindrops.