" Little The Economics of Being Somewhere Else "
The green, broad leaves
of the tobacco plants
lift like sails in the wind.
We swing hoes
through our own shadows
in the humid sunlight.
The ocean within us
rises to shimmer on our brows.
Wave after wave runs
across our sandy cheeks
dripping a few sterile drops
onto the powdery red soil.
The green lashes of weeds
fall one by one to the ground,
shrivel like corpses in the desert.
The tobacco worms writhe
like snakes chopped in two.
When we take our break,
Bob unbuttons the bib of his overalls,
taps on a pack of his old man’s Marlboros.
As the match flares, the aroma
that fills my nostrils is not cancer
or the stench of the coffin, but cash,
green, leafy cash—a wad of crinkled
dollar bills I raise to my lips
in blistered, dirt-stained hands.
© 2004 Jim Doss
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