Bay Area Gothic

September.
It’s three o’clock.
The sun is hot, the sky cloudless.
In the heart of the Silicon Valley, the valley of profit and loss,
Between the green western and yellow eastern foothills,
A rural woman stands amidst the wreckage of streams and orchards.
Nearby, the Guadalupe River is littered with plastic debris
And choked with abandoned grocery carts.
Walnut and almond orchards, peach and apricot trees
— Turned under long ago —
Are buried beneath a concrete layer of commercial activity.
She stoops, lifts, hauls, and sweats profusely.
Her eyes blaze fiercely.
Two diamonds gleam in her ears.

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