Made in the shade

It was a crappy day.

too hot for sales.

no one on the sunny side

wanted bone and turquoise earrings.

The season was nearly over,

dead til after all the turkey

and pumpkin pie put the millions

in their masses flat on their asses.

One woman pawed

the merchandise

pinned on the black velvet

covered board.

Try it on he said.

looks nice with your eyes he lied.

Not that the necklace didn't.

it was just his standard line.

I'll let you have it for five.

I don't know, she said.

Make it four, he replied.

Okay, I'll take it.

Will you fasten it for me?

Sure, turn around.

She smelled like sandalwood

and oranges.

She felt his breath on the fine hairs
on the back of her neck and shuddered.

His fingers slipped

and the necklace

fell on the sidewalk.

Sorry. sorry.

they exclaimed together.

He picked up the necklace,

held his breath this time.

There. Pointed to a small mirror

mounted on his board.

What do you think?

It's nice, she said without looking

in the mirror and handed him a five.

He pushed her hand away.

No charge today.

For once he told the truth.

It really did match her sightless eyes.

Thanks she said and turned

and tapped her way to the shade.

Dust

They smiled and traded knowing nods

as they discussed how some particular code or brand

dominated their chosen market space.

And I remembered my mother's stories

about living in a grain elevator

when the sand blew from the place

where she was born -Muleshoe Texas-

to Oklahoma City.

And how they crammed five kids,

two changes of clothes,

some pots and pans,

a hammer, a saw and a hoe,

into a drive-away Buick to be delivered

to some doctor out in Pasadena

before they headed over the Grapevine

to Visalia.

And those guys waiting at the corner

for the light to change.

In their scuffed shoes and rumpled slacks,

and their cultivated week-old whiskers

and their hundred thousand dollar debts

had no sense of the difference

between justice and revenge.

And I want to see the oaks

that shaded the bronze doughboy

in the downtown Visalia park

beside the quonset hut tossed up in '42,

when that was the most expedient means

for small town civic buildings.

And it made everybody feel

like they were participating in the war.

And when the war was over

and Mom was riding

on the back of lowslung Harleys

with the guys who had returned

from Okinawa or Palermo

with their souvenirs and G.I. bills,

getting their thrills

on the dusty valley roads.

And the sky glimpsed through the oaks

was warm and glowed with the hope

of post war prosperity and the pink tinge

of sunset washed over the pastures

and the raisin fields, and the bronze soldier

in the park on Main Street.

Walk. The signal lit up in green

counted down from fifteen.

The guys looked up from their phones

and headed for the taco truck

discussing brand and code

and market domination.

tomato sun

Monday eroded into dusk.

The fat tomato sun

bled into a horizon

blurred by the ship smoke

of six southbound freighters.

The rye'd been dry

since the first week of July,

August was past,

and the September sky

was filled with the reek

of tarweed blooms and distant fire.

Samuel gazed through the haze

at the half dozen ice tankers

bearing the last frozen calves

of the Arctic glaciers to the thirsty few

who could afford to drink fossil water

behind the high walls of of their enclaves.

His crew of Ford Mark IV automatons

had harvested his last ton of tomatoes.

(The best thing about machines

is that they are incapable of being bored)

But their indifference to emotion

sometimes seemed more cruel

than the hottest/coldest rage.