Gary Soto Poems

You're in this dream of cotton plants.
You raise a hoe, swing, and the first weeds
Fall with a sigh. You take another step,
Chop, and the sigh comes again,
...

I was hoping to be happy by seventeen.
School was a sharp check mark in the roll book,
An obnoxious tuba playing at noon because our team
Was going to win at night. The teachers were
...

All through lunch Peter pinched at his crotch,
And Jesús talked about his tattoos,
And I let the flies crawl my arm, undisturbed,
Thinking it was wrong, a buck sixty five,
...

Because there are avenues
Of traffic lights, a phone book
Of brothers and lawyers,
Why should you think your purse
...

Today it's going to cost us twenty dollars
To live. Five for a softball. Four for a book,
A handful of ones for coffee and two sweet rolls,
Bus fare, rosin for your mother's violin.
...

Listen, nephew.
When I opened the cantina
At noon
A triangle of sunlight
...

Wedding night
Graciela bled lightly—
But enough to stain his thighs—
And left an alphabet
Of teeth marks on his arm.
...

The clouds shouldered a path up the mountains
East of Ocampo, and then descended,
Scraping their bellies gray on the cracked shingles of slate.
...

There is the one who turns
A spoon over like a letter,
Reading the teeth-marks
Older than his own;
...

for César Chávez
Field

The wind sprays pale dirt into my mouth
The small, almost invisible scars
On my hands.
...