[hillcrest orchard]
he thinks that he is a man, even now
but he doesn't even have hair on his upper lip yet
there is only cactus stubble and wishes.
he wears his pants baggy, held up by a roosterswagger
and his hand around his beltbuckle.
he has a blue paisley bandanna hanging from his back pocket
and a crucifix is around his neck,
silver as grass underfoot in the full moonlight.
it hangs there against his wifebeater.
his fingers have been uprooted; it is sad.
we grow them in orchardsoil, you know.
they reach up from the ground, through the dirt
like worms during a rainstorm.
we know the body of a pear.
we know the shapes, the curves
and these homegrown fingers are bred
to pick them (pull up and then towards yourself
so you don't damage the stem).
look into our eyes and you will see that they are merely pearblossoms.
we stand here colt-legged on picking ladders
and we watch the sun plow furrows of streetlight at dusk.
but.
he thinks that he is too much of a man
to wear those harness baskets and fill them with fruit.
i seen him.
i seen him with his hair greased back and a cigarette between his lips
sitting in an old Cadillac the color of prayer candles.
he must not remember how we carried him
across a line drawn in the dust with a stick,
our feet as flat as flyswatters and our hands as rough as calico.
he must not remember the Tejano music
or the smell of grandpapa's burro skin, sweet with pipesmoke
or how his sister's eyes are like dried up apples at the base of the tree
now that he is not around anymore.
but our fingers, they keep working alright without him:
dusty with pesticides, dusty with sweatsalt.
and even now, he thinks he is a man.
i can read it on his face
as he lays here in the cradle-lap of the sidewalk.
