A Seed in the Sun

Imperial Valley, California March 1965
REMOLINO
I sometimes think about how
I lost my voice.
I could have buried it in the earth,
in the surco, the long row of dry dirt where we planted onion bulbs last spring while the heat of a too-hot California day fell on our
arched
backs
like barrels
of sun.

It could have happened
when Papá screamed for me to work faster

just as I was singing along
to Mama’s song
louder than Papá’s angry words
or the drone of planes spraying the fields
overhead.
It could have been taken
by the roaring remolino
that slammed into us
like the storm of Papa’s belt when we upset him,

an out of nowhere tornado

ripping through the fields.

Maybe that’s when the dirt-drenched air
pulled

my voice out of my breath

and caught in the

spin of wild wind.

What’s left is a whispery rasp an orange-yellow mist
that comes and goes
like clouds.
My real voice is either somewhere in the tumble of dirt in the onion fields

of the Imperial Valley
or
was taken by
the anger of the wind.

One day, I pray it comes back.