Eileen McCluskey

“You can help them with their homework…You can put them down for a nap… and you can put them on a plane to Brazil. You can bring them back to me.”
— Mother facing deportation, Boston Globe, July 2, 2025

You can call my husband when
ICE grabs me in the courthouse.
You can take a video when they are breaking
my car windows, dragging me away.

You can tell them I’m not a criminal.

You can walk our streets, watching for them.
You may know them by their masks, or their guns.
You can remind me of the hotline number,
and of the rights I am still supposed to have.

You can bring us supplies as we hide
in our homes.
You can hold a backyard fundraiser
to help us pay for food and lawyers.

You can instruct politicians
to fight for our dignity.
You can smile at us when you see us.
You can wait with us and our children at the bus stop.

You can understand that as we suffer, so do you.
We are in this together, although you
will not be disappeared, not yet.

Before you lose your rights, too,
You can demand that they stop.
Demand that they stop.

Eileen McCluskey’s publications include poetry chapbooks: Divorce Haiku (once banned) (Origami Poems Project); Topless (Main Street Rag). Her poems appear in Ibbetson Street, Main Street Rag, WBUR’s Radio Boston, Boston College Magazine, Rufous City Review, among others. Poetry recognition includes: Wickford Art Association’s 2019 exhibit of poets and painters; finalist, The Poetry Loft 2015 Chapbook Contest; and Cambridge Poetry Awards 2012 competition.

This poem appears in Uprooted: Poems of Resistance, Witness, and Survival (The Chaos Section Poetry Project, Fall 2026). We’re sharing each poem from the collection individually over the coming weeks. You can read the full book or download the free PDF here.