Belizaro’s old Ford pickup
Strained to cross the deep ruts
It has gauged into me,
Grinding its wheels
Across my soft black earth.
The truck coughed an echo
Against my silent countryside,
Carrying in it
An empty-hearted American boy
Who had come to see
My fields of working men.
Wheezing to a halt,
Its echo was replaced
By the steady:
Swish-swish, swish-swish
Of swinging machetes
That remained submerged
In the tall stalked grass
That grows between the mango trees
And Belizaro’s sugar cane.
Not until the white boy had labored
Across the rows of cane
with a bucket tied to his waist–
And felt the white grains
Of toxic fertilizer
Melt down the palms of his hands,
Did he catch a glimpse
Of the raisin-textured bodies
That move with the swish-swish steel
Of first world production
In its new home.
Resting, gringo boy
Sampled Belizaro’s cane
That must have tasted like
The red,white and blue, bomb pops
He had eaten in the snack bars
Of swimming clubs
While the steady swish-swish
Continued.
In silence
The white boy swung a machete
and uncovered my black earth,
Removing stalk by stalk
The tall grass that covers
TWenty-five square meters
Of a man’s labor
Worth three American dollars.
With mounting fervor
The boy swung the machete
Sweating, straining,
Until I could hear his heart beat:
Swish-ugh, swish-ugh;
Attuned
To the hundreds of square meters
That feed on my earth.
My workers and I
Filled the boy with a vulgar beat
Which continued
As Belizaro’s old Ford
Drove away,
Across my rutted earth.
Each day vulgar hearts
Beat out of sync
Tracking my black mud
Across the wall-to-wall carpets
That keep their distance
From my beating echo:
Swish-swish, swish-swish, swish-swish.
Each day I am engulfed–
I am engulfed to the core.
