What I Did During My Summer Vacation, That Made Me Want To Stay In College Poem by Oscar Mireles

My right big toe
has been black and blue
since the time
old Benny Navarro
got me a job
working on the docks
at the Port of Kenosha

Standing in a crooked line
with unshaven faces
at five-thirty in the morning
I was chosen to unload
100 pound boxes
of frozen meat from dead cows

after the first half hour
one of the icy boxes
dove out of my left hand
and speared my right toenail

that summer after college
I felt like a Mexican
everyday
getting up too early
standing in line
as if my brain
was as thick as the
foreman’s shoe