The Tortilla Curtain
Pwu Jean Lee
from St.Clemente, CA
On Easter, 1999
The Iron Curtain
Has melted.
The Bamboo Curtain
Has split open.
But a new curtain arose,
Draping the American border.
A cement wall is long
Like a slung blade
Slices the blue sky, the forests,
Scares deer and butterflies.
The blue sky
Has no nationality,
Butterflies and dear
Have no passports.
The Tortilla Curtain
Blocks the hungry animals
From white bread
and Hope
But not poor families
With hungry children.
The Billboards warn
The fleeting Highway 5
Against Road-Kills.
“Watch Out for families
Crossing !” on roads
Now rivers, mountains.
Humanity Being baptized
With broken flesh and blood.
The Tortilla Curtain
Can block eyes,
But not hunger and heart.
The poets weep and cry
Beholding the Wall of Shame
Grows without boundary.
Pwu Jean Lee is the author of the book of poems, East Wind, West Rain. Proficient in both English and Chinese, she has won various writing competitions in both languages. Since 2002, her verses ‘A Female Son' excerpted from this book were etched on the marble wall of the PENN STATION in Manhattan, New York City. The exhibition along with poems by Walt Whitman and eleven other American Poets is for permanent display.