Texas Jesus
Herman Sutter
January 4, 2026
(for the workers at Casa Juan Diego)
walks across borders
bootless and bare
footed, face brown as leather,
He walks from Brownsville to
Amarillo on bruised heels
and blistering toes,
carrying with Him
His only tools: rough
hands and a will to walk,
El Paso to Beaumont, leaving
footprints everywhere.
Have you seen Him?
Feet still wet from the Rio,
still bloody from the barbed wire and scrub
brush of Laredo, the barren
emptiness beyond Eagle Pass.
Have you seen Him
standing at the corner
Long Point and Pech
waiting for lights to change,
waiting for cars to pass
wondering: What happened
to the Kmart? And waiting
for someone to stop
and say: Are you
okay? I saw Him once
holding a sign, asking
for work, asking for
food, asking for change.
What will you dare
when you find out
all this time He’s
been standing there
waiting? What will you do
when you find out
everywhere He went
He was always
looking for you.
Why are you still reading this?
He’s waiting.
Go.
Herman Sutter (award-winning poet/playwright/essayist) is the author of two chapbooks: Stations (Wiseblood Books), and The World Before Grace (Wings Press), as well as “The Sorrowful Mystery of Racism,” St. Anthony Messenger. His work appears in: The Perch, The Ekphrastic Review, The Langdon Review, Touchstone, The Merton Journal, as well as: Texas Poetry Calendar (2021) & By the Light of a Neon Moon (Madville Press, 2019). His recent manuscript A Theology of Need was long listed for the Sexton prize.
