The Immigrant

She clutches her rag as a handkerchief and her tattered, patchwork skirt

A thousand prayers and hymns echoing on 

A rosary upon her breast, above her beating heart

Her last worldly possessions as she braves the open sea

A new world lies ahead of her upon the dawn she rides

In her eyes a gleam, a tear or hope?

Tomorrow her worn leather shoes will tread the dusky concrete

Of those shadowed, writhing docks upon the shore

But now the ocean breezes cold embrace her

Alone, but a dark speck upon the world

With a rosary clutched to her heart she seeks a brumous dream   

The shining streets all paved of gold, the grasses brighter green

For all the bars of Galicia are empty now and shut

The dust settling on chairs she once wiped clean

And streets, empty and dusky, windows mournfully look out

Upon the empty worlds she turns her back to 

But upon the creaking, noisy docks she leaves for 

Finds grayer streets and faces than she left 

And empty doorsteps cold and now abandoned

The painted doors shutting in her young and hopeful face

And nights working to clean the rooms of people

with so much more than she could ever claim

Her polished shoes old and cracked with monotonous wear

A cellular room and dark olive green walls to her name  

Returning alone to her dark room from the night shift

Waiting for sleep or dawn or something more

The alleyways cramped with brawling young men outside her room

Fighting with nothing to lose and nothing in reach to gain

But still she works to fill that dark, dreary room

With things she can call all her own

And her rosary has pride of place above her neat square bed

Dark, tear-stained wood her light in the sweeping city fog

A routine as she wanders thronged loud streets brown

With the rubbish, cast away in life by fortune

Searching the dim lit markets for a new pair of grey shoes

That she pinned her dreams upon in her senseless solitary world

And one day, alone in her dark room, radio rumbling monotonously

Praying with her withered, aging hands

And looking out, but seeing not the streets of old Galicia

Clutching to her breast the rosary she carried all this way

A boat ticket her golden prize after the faded years

Planning the house she's building by the ocean 

Author's Note

This poem was written with my abuela (grandmother) in mind, who came to England after the Spanish Civil War. The bravery she had to work for so many years in a strange country, unable to read or write, barely speaking English is remarkable. I hoped to capture just a glimpse at the life she led.