Evening, November 8, 2016

Fair Trade
Gary Soto

I did my best when I was young
just married, walking my love
From one room to the next.
I was living in my madness--
The traffic inside
My head while outside
Our downtown apartment, vatos
Cruised with blue tatoos...
I walked my wife from
One sun-lit room to the next,
And on a dead Sunday
I walked her to the Azteca Cafe,
Slum eating, rags
of chicken wings, lumpy gravy,
The anemic coins
Of carrots. My money,
Then, was dollar bills
That tumbled through the wash
And coins warmed by sunlight
On the chest of drawers.
Money is what gave me
A plate of chicken,
Steam like a glove,
And when I wiped
My glasses, a Mexican man
was asking for toast.
The waitress turned
And started the order,
Two slices browning
in their stand-up bed
Of red, angry filaments.
When she said, Dollar thirty,"
I thought, two slices
No meat or butter. The man
Hesitated, then fumbled for
Coins from his pocket.
This, I saw, was pride.
I stabbed my carrots,
Hurting for this man.
He took his toast
In a napkin,
Toast that was already cool.
He left no trail of crumbs
But the line of memory
From my eye to the bell jingling
On the closing door.

_____

From Gary Soto, New and Selected Poems, 1995.