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Dead, You Can Keep Going
Arturo stomps the heel of his boot and tells me: Every pinche minute I mess up a red ant. That's no good, I tell him,me the young man in the next row, The shadow of my hoe cutting weeds in Boswell's beet field. Arturo says: every super pinche half-hour I see this squirrel spin And drop- you know, the chemicals you and me are breathing. That's not nice. I tell him and hold my breath for a long second. I then feel something touch my sleeve- Sunlihght where there was dark and the icy thread of stars. We started before dawn, as the tainted valley wind nudged us along And i had no thoughts other than counting my steps. Now morning has peeled its eye open. Blackbirds Follow Our shoe prints, scolding us with hard, clapper-like tongues. My anger is fired up by weeds and blackbirds in their judges' robes, And the shouting at my house Where we five kids grow like weeds oursleves, Cut down by the anger of Mother's hot iron, A stepfather glare through a shot glass licked of bourbon. I think of home, far to the east And remember the sea that i once heard when i put a can to my ear And heard a storm i liked. Then a blackbird shouts And Arturo, steps ahead, says: every morning i say my pinche prayers And I'm still in hell. He spits words i can make out, or care about. I stop when the long tooth of my hoe dovides One of those thin-waisted red ants. I stop, hunch down, And study its jaws stll gripping its load. Poor guy, I think. I raise his back legs onto my finger And notice enen dead you can keep going, For this halved red ant is still kicking. Righted, his legs cirlce the whorls 0f my fingerprints And then stagger down the length of this digit, Falling where the weeds fall back into thee wind-tipped row.
This poem's theme is depressing and somewhat emo based on Atruro's attitude. The other guys mood seems more hopeful but still his mood seems down and depressed.
