Like you don’t get anywhere,
running through trees tall as small houses.
Black trunks lined in steady small pilings
like the white, gray stones of Arlington
like a million telephone poles
one million deep, along a fast narrow road.
Haitians, shade sitting on orange crates,
smoke, with sticky fingers and wet mouths.
They get lost in the shadowy room under the tree;
black jeans and long sleeved shirts,
faded long-brimmed hats, only their cuticles
and moist stubble reflect the sun.
It’s so hot here. After the afternoon showers
it smells like we are steaming the rinds.
The grove seems bigger than the sky
when you’re under it, and from the tops of the trees
you can see the curve of the earth, and on the ground,
no grass grows in the paths. It is beat down
by sandals and big machines
and fallen oranges
beat down around the trunk
the moist black dirt
and rot and fertilize.
