A broken arrow of American geese By Kimberly Vargas Agnese

A broken arrow of American geese

form shadows over the field,
where Valentina gathers
sweat, dust and tomatoes
for ten dollars an hour|

honking,
they fly above truck flaps, billboards
and the cat-eyed headlights of a ’57 Chevy.

Within the heartbeat of ancestral homing, they descend
just beyond Highway 180
into a patch of cows the color of a tire pyramid

resume flight in the eye of an Arri Alexa camera,
are sent to a video assistant who stops at a bistro
where suits complain
(over slices of marinated cherry tomatoes)
about how much “money is taxed out of their veins
to support wetback leaches”

flightless, they gather dust
in the leather disk storage case of a man who sips Virgin Marys
on his flight across the San Joaquin Valley,

over the tomato field where sweat beads glisten
above Valentina’s lips