By Julio Villegas

devouts & faithless both agree:

there’s angels over Jersey.

Archangels over Essex,

& wherever I stand, so do you.

bastion of boulevards, bards, basilicas

brickwork of a Babel understood,

still being understood, still being.

all roads lead here: cities in my steps,

civilization in my speech. immigrant

hammer forging both hammer and nail,

liquid iron beneath blizzards, & ICE to hellfire.

my fruits may be strange, bruised, slow-blooming,

but they’re true. authentic & only found here,

harvested & shared with grace. & if there is shame,

my pride eclipses my pride. one piece is not the mosaic,

as a brushstroke is not the entire mural. neither exist

without its countless components, the word beautiful

is written a thousand different ways here. 

it’s embodied, endured, breathed, exhaled, 

on & on & on & on until you remember

yourself, before the outside named you,

categorized and classified you until you believed it,

mistaked it for you—mistaked it for us.

how many generations survived for you to read this.

the eyes of your parents, grandparents, great-grandparents,

all at the same time. voyages, battles, centuries, solitude,

celebration. seeds sprout in these trail of footprints.

Never forget that. you could forget me, but never forget yourself.

contradictions can coexist, cherry blossom branches

& machine exhaust, stained glass over stenciled silhouettes, 

grace & grit, ferocity & fatigue, burnout & burning,

yet love is the willingness for growth. we’re more than now,

potential for what if to materialize into wonder at what is,

heavenly forest, Edenic garden of our own, rising from concrete,

regardless of drought or cloudless sky, this community’s watered— 

by angels over Jersey, Archangels over Essex, infinity in an instance.

Julio Villegas Born in San Juan, Puerto Rico — raised in Essex County, New Jersey. Immigrants are beautiful, borders imaginary. Reach Julio @ https://linktr.ee/jcvillegas  

Featured Image: Gary Sprengel