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a red palm - gary soto lyrics

you’re in this dream of cotton plants
you raise a ho, swing, and the first weeds
fall with a sigh. you take another step
chop, and the sigh comes again
until you yourself are breathing that way
with each step, a sigh that will follow you into town

that’s hours later. the sun is a red blister
coming up in your palm. your back is strong
young, not yet the broken chair
in an abandoned school of dry spiders
dust settles on your forehead, dirt
smiles under each fingernail
you chop, step, and by the end of the first row
you can buy one splendid fish for wife
and three sons. another row, another fish
until you have enough and move on to milk
bread, meat. ten hours and the cupboards creak
you can rest in the back yard under a tree
your hands twitch on your lap
not unlike the fish on a pier or the bottom
of a boat. you drink iced tea. the minutes jerk
like flies

it’s dusk, now night
and the lights in your home are on
that costs money, yellow light
in the kitchen. that’s thirty steps
you say to your hands
now shaped into binoculars
you could raise them to your eyes:
you were a fool in school, now look at you
you’re a giant among cotton plants
now you see your oldest boy, also running
papa, he says, it’s time to come in

you pull him into your lap
and ask, what’s forty times nine?
he knows as well as you, and you smile
the wind makes peace with the trees
the stars strike themselves in the dark
you get up and walk with the sigh of cotton plants
you go to sleep with a red sun on your palm
the sore light you see when you first stir in bed

- gary soto lyrics

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