Jolt of Pride
Dennis Cummings
Surface streets and cul-de-sacs come into view.
Drowsy workers pass signs that say
Casa Avenida and Roberto Way. Swooping in
in vintage Tacomas, Nissans, a dented Dakota
with torn mudflaps. Rakes and brooms are lashed
to the corners of battered truck beds.
Two years become two decades. Now you're
either boss or you're back at the lumber yard
waiting to be picked up by retirees.
So you'll lean into the job at hand,
won't complain when told to wear clothes
that suffocate but stop cuts and itching. Besides,
the gringos are paying to have their yards just so –
just so that jolt of pride kicks in
during ten seconds they spend between car and front door.
Dennis Cummings lives in Poway, CA. He has lived in San Diego County all his life, where he worked for 49 years in the flower growing and shipping industry. He wrote a few poems and short stories while he was at SDSU in the early seventies. He began writing poetry again recently and has poems published or forthcoming in The Baltimore Review, The Portland Review, Witness, and elsewhere.