In the Discount Lot

Angela C. Trudell Vasquez

Outside the grocery store
laden with the sweat
of tanned field workers
we stand          little girls in winter coats
our hands hold signs leaflets
our dark long hair waist length
one straight, one curly
we say to the people
who walk up to the glass door

don’t buy the lettuce here—
they aren’t good to their workers

I don’t recall anyone
said anything back
or who stood with us
I remember my sister
next to me,      us
in our Sunday velvet best
she     beret and red plaid jacket
me     white rabbit skin muff
little brown girls with picket signs
rosy cheeks, big black eyes
legions of ghosts
above              behind
angels wing over us
ancestor feathers beat
in the invisible breeze
each time someone enters
or exits the building—
with a bag
full of groceries
oranges and eggs
celery and grapes.

Copyright © 2021 by Angela C. Trudell Vasquez. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on November 18, 2021, by the Academy of American Poets.