To whom / What I bow

for the ones who hold the line

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i bow to what keeps the body from collapsing

not the monument
the maintenance

i bow to the hands that never enter the photograph

the farmworker bent into rows before light
strawberries staining the cuticle
soil under the nail - alfalfa / clay / irrigation water

the honey bee - feral mathematician -
mapping sweetness across distances we will never walk
carrying pollen like a quiet contract
her colony thinning under neonicotinoid rain

the plumber under the house
face in the damp dark
learning the language of blockage / pressure / release
copper / rust / slow leak / the smell of old solder

the woman on night shift folding linens
hospital corners tight enough to hold a life in place
bleach / heat / repetition
vending machine coffee at 4 a.m.
the ache in her lower back she does not name

the line cook at 2 a.m. -
oil burn on the forearm
the mother who washes the same shirt
into its twentieth year

the person who drives the truck at 3 a.m.
keeping oranges moving across state lines
keeping milk from turning
diesel / thermos coffee / long road

the elotero pushing the cart up the hill in August
chile / lime / cotija
who took the paper food stamps when nobody else would
the bell he rings without needing to be told why

i bow to the root systems
that hold the hill together when the rain comes sideways
oak / manzanita / wild grasses gripping the slope

to mycelium -
trading sugar / warning / memory beneath us

to the barn owl thinning the rodents in silence
to the turkey vulture cleaning what we cannot bear to see
to the dog who keeps watch at the door we do not lock

i bow to the fog drip on the redwood
to the rain that returns
to the wind that pollinates what the bees no longer can

i bow to the ones who fix what we never see break

wires
pipes
roads at their softest points

i bow to the overlooked labor of repair

the auntie who feeds everyone before she sits
the one who remembers who cannot eat salt
the grandmother boiling bones into broth
the midwife with cracked hands and a low voice

i bow to the dead who hold us up
to the composting forest floor
to the ancestors whose names we lost
and the ones we never knew to ask

i bow to grief that keeps showing up anyway
to breath that returns even when unwanted

i bow to what continues
without applause

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