Journal

The Slab was Purgatory

A day was as cool as it would get.
The boss was never there
At the slab, five-acres of oiled-dirt,
When we came to work at 7:00
While the day was still serene.
We guessed the boss drove by
Not stopping, checking for our cars
Around the time to start work.
The job, sorting long avenues
Of mixed raisin pick-boxes,
Grower’s names stenciled on them.
Emptied at the packinghouse,
An assortment by the hundreds,
Stacked fifteen feet high,
Ended up here on the slab
Outside of town, until October
When the growers came here
To take their pick-boxes away.
The boss came around to check-up
Three times during the day
To insure we were working;
10 A.M., lunch, and at 3:00 P.M.,
And deliver paychecks on Saturdays.
We went to work a half hour
Before the boss got there,
Getting dirty and sweaty.
He would tell us to take it easy
And not to overdo it.
Organizing filthy wooden boxes
By the grower’s name
Was punishment of the damned
As the day turned to hell-fire,
A torturing, punitive heat.
Temperatures exceeded 107-degrees.
After the boss left, we withdrew
To our shady resting place
At the far end of the lot,
Behind a barrier of boxes
Away from sight and the road.
We built a large shade covering,
Reclining chairs, coffee table,
A bed for hung-over mornings,
Out of broken wooden boxes.
Music from a portable radio.
We waited for an afterlife
At the end of the workday;
4:00 P.M., at the hottest time.
We were sorry for our sins,
At minimum wage of a $1.25 an hour,
We were in need of cleansing.
The car windows rolled down,
North on Golden State Boulevard
At 60 miles-an-hour, a dusty green blur
Of oleanders and palm trees,
Hot air blew in on the newly dead.

Stephen Barile, a Fresno, California native, attended Fresno City College, Fresno Pacific University, and California State University, Fresno. He was a long-time member of the Fresno Poet’s Association. Stephen Barile lives and writes in Fresno. His poems have been published extensively.

Freezing

I break branches and gather bramble
that binds the ties of the railroad tracks,
unpaid work while I am out of work, no demand
for window sashes to make of pine and fir, my breath
slick in the cold weather flying like birds from my chest.
I’ll go back to work, they project, but do not promise,
in the spring, after the winter the plant stands idle.

Ice argues with water in the slush pocket
near the rails, one winning in the sun,
one winning in the darkness.
Hush takes up the enormous share of time
this winter morn, wispy clouds light brushstrokes
appearing as if intentional to un-monotonize the sky.
Mud cakes boot bottoms, a heaviness
I like, a means to shuffle through wee ponds
and stay sturdy, as if a weighted tare
to gain passage, the lead a jockey adds to ride.

I grunt, and grunt work it is,
and I am happy in this self-caused haze of moisture
from my more frequent puffs, thinking of eggs
turned with toast in the pan, butter liquefying
into transparent bubbles that snap,
the clang of the pan in the sink after sliding the eggs
onto a plate, the ting of the tines of the fork.
Metal—I did not know until out of a job
with wood how much I loved metal,
the rails, the zipper, the pans, the utensils,
the forging process of molds and heat
rather than saw, plane, rasp, and knife.
I light the branches and leafless bramble
and nurse the stutter and lurch of the flame
until like a frozen lake at sunset the entire surface
burns the color of a molten metal pouring from a hod.
I imagine spring, my muscles taut,
my face blank, expressions frozen.

Jeff Burt lives in Santa Cruz County, California, spending the seasons dodging fires, floods, earth-shaking, and all the other scrambling life-initiatives. He has contributed to Heartwood, Tiny Seeds Journal, and The Muleskinner Journal.

Jump Down Spin Around

–after “Shake the Dust” by Anis Mojgani

This is for wee babies—their dribbles & giggles. This is for naptimes & nappies
—lullabies, burps & the sweet smell on the backs of tiny necks. This is for
mama’s milk & her womb tightening with each suckle back to the size of her fist.
This is for serious looks & furrowed brows & rubber duckies at bath time. This
is for Johnny-Jump-Ups & learning to squeal with each bounce.

Jump Down Spin Around

This is for grandparents. This is for Mummum’s lubby-dubby arms & her soft lap.
This is for the scent of lavender in her white hair. This is for Papa’s whiskers & his
strong but gentle hugs. This is for being read to at bedtime. This is for reading the
same story over & over. This is for grandparents swinging toddlers to the moon &
trips around the block only holding on to one finger for each of them.

Jump Down Spin Around

For joy & walking now. This is for sunglasses & socks with sticky dots on the
bottoms so toddlers don’t fall down when they step on the hardwood. This is for
dogs playing nursemaid & one-year-olds climbing into the dog bed with them.
This is for the carpet on the playroom floor covered with toys & more toys that
don’t quite fit into a one-year-old’s mouth.

Jump Down Spin Around

This is for music—ukuleles, penny whistles, xylophones & toy pianos.This is for
the Beetles on TV & bugs in the garden. For chickens & orchards, swings & slides.
This is for tricycles & tractors, Thomas the Tank Engine even though he isn’t real.
This is for rag dolls & stuffies & Elsa & Anna. This is for singing at the top of your
lungs & soft pillows to scream into.

Jump Down Spin Around

This is for the alphabet. Now you can write a grocery list. Bubblegum, Ovaltine,
hot chocolate mix, strawberries & ice cream, Nutella & potato chips. Love is for
family, kindergarten, Roald Dahl & preschool. This is for Into the Woods &
Matilda, The Mandalorian & baby Grogu, tree frogs & owls, dinosaurs & the
biggest, strangest & most rare stones, birds, animals ever. Where did the first
dinosaur come from? This is for squid eyes big as soccer balls. This is for soccer
balls.

Jump Down Spin Around

Burn your finger. Get smoke in your eyes till you cry. This is for air & airplanes,
warships, catastrophes & vocabularies. What’s the word? filthy, tentacles, tapestry,
escapology & virtual. Take a hike, swim a lap, do a forward, back, egg & pencil roll.
Win a trophy, then two, three & more. Stick them up on the mantle. Learn a
song, write a rhyme, bake a cake & shake a leg. Become a math wiz, A+ in algebra.
Name the planets in order from the sun. Quiz your grandmother just for fun.
Drive a tractor & a motorcycle. Drive your mother to distraction.

Dale Champlin, an Oregon poet with an MFA in fine art, has poems in The Opiate, Timberline, Pif, and Triggerfish Critical Review among other journals. Dale has three poetry collections; The Barbie Diaries, Callie Comes of Age, 2021, and Isadora, 2022. Three additional collections, Leda, Medusa, and Andromina, A Stranger in America are forthcoming. dalechamplin.com

Ode to Getting By

Whisper to me, February,
the true reason for your arrival.
Though stores fly your
white and red banners,
and my neighbor’s narcissus sprouts
yellow spikes and furls from below,
I hear only the raucous cries of black birds
who sport feathers of oil slick rainbows.
They march across lawns in a straight line,
a platoon scavenging for supplies.
Smelling like a road worker
who’s forgotten to wash
you are the month meant to tease us
with signs of life while we eat the last
of what’s left in the larder. Comfort food
meals of soup, chewy dark bread and beans
flavored with molasses and mustard.
“Sticks to your ribs” my dad would say to me,
in the getting-by months after Christmas
and before taxes. Mom would push her food
around her plate until my dad cleared his,
and she could light a cigarette. Her family
never hid in the basement from bill collectors,
or ate government issue cheese. She will stare
through the window pane until he finishes,
his chewing slow as he works to keep
his store-bought teeth in his mouth.
I will clear the table and wash.
Dad will dry while Mom gets
the checkbook to balance
the family’s accounts.

Kris Demien lives with multiple species in Portland, Oregon. Her work appears in VoiceCatcher, The Poeming Pigeon/Sports issue and at About Place Journal. 

Just in Case, Por Si Acaso
My Children’s Children

with their American blue eyes, have never seen
the cocky rooster scratching the base of a guayaba tree
nor the seedy-pulp laden with fructose and worms

they will never know the many flavors
of a grapefruit ripened in the morning sun
or how the number of aguacates
can predict la tormenta, the storm

nor will they hear a sunrise serenada
from a love-sick novio with a rented guitar,
or the syncopated calls of parents when it’s time
for home, for rest, or the callers selling panapén

they won’t dream in the frog’s dream
or his dance in a sudden rainstorm
or how the month of mayo brings beauty to a face
or the power of La Rogativa

peor and worse

how they will never know that la iguana
twirls at the sight of red and yellow gumdrops
or the name of the Smooth-bill ani that smokes
and cusses a black streak of familiar malas palabras

while the familia plays dominos
deep into the night with Cuba Libres
whose Coke diminishes with each tab, but not the rum,
while vinyl blares rumbas and merengue,

and the vital beso,

the kiss, on the cheek every time we saw
each other, regardless of sex or preference
and how we called everyone primo just because
it was an habitual face, and that an excess
of la comida was made —por-si-acaso

and, of course, all the primos came bearing ghosts,
like Guanina, discarded tales of old skirmishes
no one remembers the Spanish war
and how delicately we greeted them
with offerings of alcholado and salts from our soil

or how we threw water at year’s end
with the same passion as reciting
el rosario, for the departed who sat on the pew
holding manos with the living

or el billete de la lotería that held la promesa
of a game that could turn fate
and steadfast land and river
so we could wake up again and again
under the canopy of a mosquito net

so much covered in the rusted tin
of passage and yet, like mangoes’gutli
sometimes discarded but sometimes allowed
to germinate

por-si-acaso

Amelia Díaz Ettinger is a Latinx BIPOC poet and writer. Amelia’s poetry and short stories have been published in anthologies, literary magazines, and periodicals. She has an MS in Biology and MFA in creative writing. Her literary work is a marriage of science and her experience as an immigrant. Presently, she resides in Eastern Oregon.