All day long, she stoops to the dull
cadence of a hopeless song flitting
through her mind. The young girl with
long braided black hair and olive cheeks
longs for things common to others, an
education, a separate bedroom in a
warm house, days without backbreaking
labor picking vegetables for those with
tables filled with delicious food, and
laughter. I pity her toiling in the vast
unforgiving fields of dark loam hour after
hour, day after day, month after month,
always wondering if there is a balcony in
a white two-story stucco house in a city
somewhere, where she could look down
on a beautiful garden of flowers, and
dream, and then retreat into a warm
house with a table filled with delicious
food, and laughter.