El Andar Prize for Literary Excellence II

POETRY: first place

CA Redemption

by John Olivares Espinosa

Im tossing out my Time
Magazines and kitchen trash
And see a Mexican waist deep
(Or is it just waste deep?)
In the mouth of an orange Dumpster.
He's wearing a green soccer jersey
The color of old lettuce leaves,
His player number is lucky seven
And maybe he had a nickname then,
Like La Pata, The Foot,
Maybe he played with my uncle?
Now he's ripping through
Plastic grocery bags,
Sifting through vegetable pudding,
Used tampons and condoms
Wrapped in toilet paper,
His chinos soaking in chicken grease,
On his aluminum hunt.
The thick smell of stale cola
Reminds me of recycling with
Mom Every other
Saturday at Lucky's
When I was a kid:
Two cans for five cents,
And the vending machines
That sucked and crushed cans
Down to colorful hockey pucks
And how exciting it was
To press the blinking redemption button,
And watching the nickels and dimes
Pour like metal rain Inside a small slot.
I remember getting older
And embarrassed
For relying on recycling
To eat lunch.
So I left Mom alone,
Patiently recycling grocery bags
Full of soda cans
One by one.
The soccer player sees me
And quickly looks downward
At his feet and pride
Sinking among trash bags
I tell him there's a few
Soda cans in my trash
And walk back upstairs
To grab last night's
Bud Light cans
And stale Little
Debbie Coffee cakes
To give him.
He's still there, stomping around,
And he accepts them
As he would a smile
On this Monday,
Martin Luther King's Day,
Not that it matters
Because the shrubs are freshly trimmed,
Which tells me the gardeners
Didn't get the day off,
Which means my Dad
Is putting in ten hours
Across the lawns.
The soccer player
Walks away
With a white plastic bag
Weighed down by
The worth of an empty six-pack:
A few hard earned cents
That will preserve him
In the light of the world
For one more day.

Copyright © 2002 John Olivares Espinoza All Rights Reserved

© 2002 El Andar Media Corporation