lh, where God sits at the end of the day

[LeeAnn Heringer]

where God sits at the end of the day
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hitching a ride up from the river
in the back of a pickup
filled with Mexican fieldhands
and a rusted spare tire,
our heads bowed in the wind
as if in prayer. as if
the dirt on our skin,
on the lip of the communal jug,
is the crust of this bread is his body.

they gossip in spanish
so broken
no spaniard would claim it
of knives drawn over corner girls
and losses at cockfights.
tired men far
from the hands of their Mexican wives
thick with tortilla flour,
white as priest collars
against the cast iron grill.
gambling with each roll
of their broken teeth
that I can't repeat
their confessions.

maybe God is here. sitting
shoulder to sweaty shoulder
with the never-gonna-haves.
just happy to be done
with another day's labor
in the back of the pickup,
speeding towards town.

LeeAnn Heringer