Pack My Bags
written by: Pablo Cúzco
A ‘56 Studebaker blows smoke rings
down a dirt road near Truth or Consequences.
Lost in its own vortex, it screams the piston screech
of oil-bathed lubrication—needle to the red
—a savage, foot stomping, mad drive
thru the pillars of eternity
and the singing cicadas
of the desert night.
— I am the driver.
To reach the end of the walled earth—where the light
is squelched by the steel and rust that hides misery, the broken rancho
dreams that embrace America’s southern coast—the ports of entry
where we are detained, kept hostage to a two-sided misery:
On the one side hatred—jealousy and wrath.
On the other—desperation.
I travel the wasteland of the “other” America
—its third-world, secret child hidden behind the dunes,
the hills and flatlands—to the Texas high country,
green Oklahoma pastures, the red buttes of Utah,
and the Golden Eternity of Kansas
—to where the Rockies break the belly of the country,
and see firsthand,
the Great Divide.
I
The reservations where we were driven
—the Sioux, the Lakota, the Creek. Our land stolen
by a ‘manifest destiny’ contrived of thieves who coveted our home.
Our lives forsaken, our sorrow tossed to the wind like arrows
—broken by savage contracts
sworn on the promise of death,
coerced by gunpowder and deceit.
II
From a far off land
—packed like the spines of fish on the lower decks,
chattel to market—to replace those whose blood watered the plains
where America now worships its God. To build the capitols,
plantations and arteries of commerce. On an endless road.
Never repatriated, never compensated. Captured for an eternity
—or until we come to our own
full circle to freedom.
III
Lured across the Pacific with the promise of fortune.
—Shanghaied to San Francisco, Seattle and a barbaric coast.
To work the railroads, the gold mines. To build the backbone
of the West—a dream for the cowboy and the steer—
Chicago and the meat packers — beaten down
in coolie camps, deprived of family—celibate by law
—to limit integration into an America kept white
by self-determinism
and fear.
— I am the driver
Into the glare of a sunset-tinted windshield, I seek home
—I search the sky but find only the ghettos and the barrios,
where my people are segregated into diversity.
The aroma of manteca, red sorghum, white maize,
beans and rice, and the sound of children, fill the air.
Our future, to be determined. Our past, a long line
of contradiction—freedom in captivity—prosperity
in relative poverty—equality,
measured by our ability
to remain silent.
— I am the driver
…but my wheels spin.
With my compass stolen,
I turn circles in the sand.
— I am the driver
…who looks ahead from the past—
to see if this dirt road might lead to somewhere
beyond the pillars of eternity
and the singing cicadas
of the desert night.
- Pack My Bags - October 17, 2025
- Spotlight On Writers – Pablo Cúzco - September 13, 2025
- The Imagination of Dreams - June 19, 2025
