The Harvest Is Over
I’m just a hungry vagabond
being tormented by the smell of young garlic
tucked in moist fertilizer, sleeping in rows among their brothers,
raised by someone else waiting for them to grow big and strong,
for their skin to be dense and layered like my calluses,
their cloves to be as giant as a worker’s curled biceps,
to hold just one bundle with a wide fist and show off with a “look at these beauties!”
Even though the dusk is long gone and they’re hiding in the soil,
I can still feel the harvest in my hands,
the pulling of the roots, grabbing them by their green hair
and planting the young blood that will grow just the same as all the others.
The night is dark, yet life is most present in this valley.
I can hear the crickets wide awake, the water rushing to the pipes,
doves still mourning, my stomach still growling,
but this place won’t calm my appetite anymore.
The harvest has been picked. The money has been made.
I’m dragging old leather boots through fluffed-up soil,
facing the black void that is the highway in front of me,
waiting along the empty rows for my ride to the tomato fields,
swollen and ripened, waiting for my hands to pick them.
Maybe there, I’ll satisfy my stomach,
but no fields will ever burn my memory with the tasty acidity
of these garlic cloves that will never be mine to eat.