By Leonard Adame
Edited by Richard Stone
Leonard Adame is a frequent contributor to the Community Alliance, with numerous and eloquent photo essays and commentaries to his credit. Here, he expands his repertoire with a poem exhibiting acuteness and a fine sense of irony.
I ate asparagus, this
afternoon, green as the ocean,
a slight bitterness,
the mayonnaise stark
against the silky fibers
asparagus from Mexico,
as it turned out,
it had no problems
crossing the border
aboard NAFTA semis,
no one let dogs sniff
them, no one said, “papeles,
ensename tus papeles o los
mando al infierno verde, cabrones”—
they just nestled in the back
under a canvass, happy in
the damp of a friendly darkness,
happy on their journey
to the promised land of supermarket
bins, where they waited
like pets to be taken home,
carefully bagged, cherished
I ate them, not thinking at that
point, about how they
were grown, how they were
gathered gently, with a reverence
that shone even from a
major domo–they admired
how each stalk was green as dollars,
knew envy was not a factor here,
that the green spears were generous
in their availability in the Hollywood-like
stages called supermarkets—
all of this, a perennial green fiesta,
while the campesinos
looked northward, toward
where people accepted Mexican
asparagus as long as the Mexicans
sang songs after work and made
sure to smile gratefully
at the bosses as they spit
tobacco and dealt envelopes
with paychecks whose numbers
never add up
still I ate the asparagus,
ate the lives of campesinos,
spread indifference and mayonnaise
on their futures and ate them,
ate them and wondered
what I’d have tomorrow:
Mexican eggplant, bruised
as their lives, or Mexican squash,
green and soft as the souls
of the dispossessed
