Padre Island National Seashore

The wind can’t lift
Above a nodding fold
A flag for the world
To see who owns
Beached jellyfish and dunes.

They come by night,
Like locusts, Mexican dreamers
Who crossed the Rio Grande
Into the Promise Land:
Women give birth to Americanos;
Men risk their lives

For milk and honey they can earn
By the same peon sweat they shed
On their homesand.
Padre Island without a moon,
With its black flag and ocean waves
Speaking Spanish all night long.