From the Waves

The waves are green walls
of stained-glass silt
shattering onto the beach.
A red-bellied
white schooner rides
the crest of water,
slowly sinks its teeth
into a side-swiping current.

Trees old as greed watch the sea
from their balcony boxes of earth,
while these beach-view houses
live in other people's dreams.
A lawn gets its weekly manicure,
while people sweat and die
in cane fields fires
in Haiti, in Hawaii.
While these people live in museums
with guest rooms,
others live in prison,
will never play golf
or use a computer,
work for a few dollars a week,
for nothing,
packagin Spaulding golf balls
and Microsoft software.

The sticky sun reminds me
of an orange grown by migrant workers
who live in abandoned buses
or aluminum shacks
between the highway and the field.
I bathe my city sweat 
in the crisp green
yet suspiciously clear water.
A child plays in a pocket of sea.
I want to tell him to watch out--
there are cold blue fists 
rising within the water.

Look at the ocean's floor--
sand rises,
an army of ghosts gallops,
thousands of poor
pushing up
someday out
of the sea.