Saturday, March 5, 2011

THE FOOD TRUCK

[Published in Poetry Quarterly, Spring 2012]

THE FOOD TRUCK


The immigrant in his food truck,
parked at the edge of the lot,
sells reminders of home--
pupusas, tamales, tortillas--
to hungry laborers coming off shifts,
or waiting for work in the morning light;
to men whose families wait back home
for the monthly remittance,
or the fee for the coyotes to bring them North.

His foods remind him
of the land he farmed
and the corn he grew,
like his ancestors,
long before the Spanish,
and before the flood
of cheap corn from America.

His farm is now a memory;
views of his fields replaced by
parking lots, construction sites,
and the faces of men like him,
looking for something to take them back home.

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