DRY CRIK Journal

I had thought that day I started
when the summer sun used to break
in long white shards over the Sierras

to blind, spread and fall onto the Valley
floor, onto Uncle Lou’s Red Malagas:
translucent bunches hung from a canopy

of canes at first light like offerings
to deities to be picked, packed and hauled
to the shed for weeks – how glorious!

Dust subdued with dew, foreign smell
of sawdust on empty boxes nested in
tall water grass – I had a job with men

along the avenue bustling with lidding
lugs, loading and unloading trailers
towed by the faded gray and red Ford 8N.

One to a long row of intertwined vines,
a dozen women plucked raisins and birdpecks
before placing each bunch like fat soldiers

into the box. It was an art to tuck each
with shoulders up into a mounded ocean
of crimson berries, then press the last

row of generals in, green stems up for
unpacking somewhere East of the mountains.
Dad and Louie made a deal to hire me

to swamp full lugs out and empties in – at
the beckon of women deep in the field.
Just eleven, but old enough to earn

seventy-five cents an hour to order
and buy a twenty-gauge shotgun
from Sears & Roebuck through the mail.