Campesina

The crop-duster swore by her
as she cowered in the fields

waiting for the poison dust
to settle

in her lungs
in her brain

worried for the child
in her loins

she kept on laboring
in the darkening fields

United Farmworker flags
waving on a nearby road

she bent back down
to the crops

the dirt so close
she had to be careful

not to
breathe it in.