MONEY ORDER ANGELS

With fingers seamed in sweet potato dirt
  The migrant farm workers
  Count out new hundred dollar bills
  For money orders
  Starchily dispensed
  By the clerk.
  
  When the winged god
  Of the U.S. Postal Service
  Scatters those bills across Mexico,
  Children have shoes and notebooks for school
  Beans and a chicken on Sunday
  Grandmother gets new teeth
  And wives smile at husband memories.
 
 Like an Advent Angel
 Announcing that this birth counts 
 That someone can be counted on
 The money orders fly
 On filaments of faith
 To brighten
 Barest rooms.

Sr. Evelyn Mattern