Dios te ama

Gabriela sits on the sidewalk across from la Guarderia’s entrance,
crisp blue jersey and denim skirt contrasting with the sagging white plastic
that covers her barrio home. Her Mary Janes dangle over the gutter
where torn coffee cups and bits of paper drift in brown water.
Ragged laundry sways above a patched-together tin roof.
Across the street, glue sniffers crash in a corner, eyes glazed,
doped-up smiles on baby faces, but she looks past them

to a group of girls dressed in identical plaid skirts and white blouses.
As they approach, they glance at her, then whisper
as they disappear through la Guarderia’s rust-colored gate.
A gaunt brown and white cat peers out from a nearby doorway
and looks the other way as the guard slides the gate shut.
A moment later, like spent petals of the tumbergia plant,
laughter drifts over
the wall that separates the school from the barrio.
Gabriela stares at the gate and fingers a strand of dark brown hair
before slipping through the curtained doorway of her home,
past a wall where faded black letters proclaim:
Dios te ama.