At the Dino Mart in Gustine
The consequence of making an alien baby
Back in the dust of Bakersfield
Was revealed, as we became
The children of the Sinclair dinosaur,
Mewling for snaps at the green toy.
It was all we could do to get away
From a Wasco that was no longer roses
In endless fields for New Year’s Day
Along the death road to Paso Robles
Where we commiserated with a Starbucks robot
At California milk spoiled at 103 degrees.
But neither the five dollar rabbit
Nor the zebra from Shafter prepared us
For the dueling flatbeds of homeless chihuahuas,
One done up as a muscle car float
The other a plywood pallet on wheels
Where the chihuahua’s all had bells.
The roads are like that now, especially when
Family is involved. Every exit goes to Arkansas,
A hush hush past that’s now blown up
Like the one burned down house on the road
Where the rainbow ice cream vendor
Wheels her dyed-ice sugar for no one.
Every father has misplaced one daughter
At least, just as every son leaves home
So his heart can be broken, and no one
Looks at any loving couple as anything
But a misplayed bet waiting to settle,
Where the choice of lawyer proves your worth.
It’s a wonder they have all survived
To migrate like birds from this pizza reunion
To Arbuckle and Willows, Maxwell, Artois,
Ceres and Lemoore, Lockeford, Firebaugh
Tracy, Pixley, Ducor -- but mostly Porterville,
Swapped like crops with demand and the weather,
Kingsburg cling peaches for Dinuba pears,
Arvin champagne grapes for raisins from Parlier,
Weedpatch carrots that give way to Turlock honeydews,
Or Reedley, where they grow loofahs on trees,
Or Galt to work white sturgeon eggs, or tomato sauce Davis
Or Lindsay's fragrant groves of citrus.
But they don't shed a tear, like the other orphaned farmers here
At the thought of someone in their family
Being sent away to Mexico in a plane
They worry if someone will speak to them again
After all the neglect summer dust required
To pack fresh offspring in out-of-state crates.
