Maria Garcia Teutsch

 

Maria Garcia Teutsch is a poet and writer residing in Santa Cruz. She serves as editor of Ping Pong magazine out of the Henry Miller Library in Big Sur. Her publications include Cold Mountain Review, Monterey Poetry Review, Haight Ashbury Literary Journal, the South Carolina Review, the Sierra Nevada Review, the Santa Clara Review and Lullwater Review, among others.

E-mail: maria@marialoveswords.com
Web site: http://marialoveswords.com

Place setting from 2005 reading

In fourth grade
I picked tomatoes
to make money.

The night before, we packed
our lunches with anticipation
and American cheese sandwiches.

We left at dawn with the sun
slithering across the desert,
twisting the horizon into slivers of gold.

The drive out to the farmland
was filled with yawns and coffee.
I leaned against my brother and dozed.

On our way we passed farm workers,
their painted signs blurring by.
I catch one word, strike.

My brother yells, Viva la Raza
and I ask what it means.
He raises his chin and smiles.

In the field the smell
of disturbed earth and sweat mingles
with the sound of giggles

from my sister’s friends.
I stand in between rows,
a bucket full of green tomatoes

too heavy to lift, my brother
carrying it to men sitting
in precious shade.

We left as soon as the thermometer
danced above 100.
The others stayed.

Others.

I worked to buy a new
outfit for my Barbie,
and dreamed of making

enough for her pink corvette.
After three days with the
pubescent hairs of the vines,

I developed a rash
and had to ponder
my three-day career

under the lace
of my canopy bed.
I never went back.

I think of those others
honed by a desire
to feed the hunger

that could never
be sated earning
five cents a bucket.

I couldn’t even lift that nickel.