Shelter

The Shell station on the corner
the most expensive one in town
charges thirty cents more than the freeway one.
Sometimes I spring for a tank when I get low

because I like the way it shelters squatters
compact brown men short on cash
but long on pride
in search of an honest day’s work.

I tell the owner why I buy his gas
in spite of its exorbitance.
As our town dreams of a day-labor center
tries hard to raise the funds, the owner welcomes them.

I hire them when I need a hand to dig up
Agapanthus or haul away a stump
and sometimes, to inflate my tires
before the infernal machine runs out of time.

It’s a gift to practice Spanish—
exercise the muscles of forgetting—
a subjunctive tense here,
an obscure adjective there.

It’s my tiny contribution to the cause
like the Xmas club my mother
opened for me as a child
to fund our family’s gifts.

I want to tell them to take cover.
Fears of an ICE raid
have dominated the neighborhood
airwaves for days.

I admire the way they crouch in plain sight
in tempests and in balmy weather.
I emulate the dignity of their carriage
the way they share coffee and cigarettes.

When I don’t see them I stop to ask the owner
impatient for his slow-spun response.
I want to warn them to take cover
tell them how the madman hates California
would love to purge their ranks.
I muse about the name Shell,
recall its Spanish sister, concha
which doubles as the word for womb.

How they endure
predictable as rain or drought
a small band of men hiding in plain sight
in the concha of the Shell station.