Lunchtime
by Jianqing Zheng
—Dorothea Lange’s Lunchtime for Cotton Hoers, Mississippi Delta, June 1937
After hoeing the cotton field
the whole morning,
the girl slumps on the pallet
in a sliver of shade
and gulps a bottle of soda,
her face like a blank lake
with no ripples to stir it.
She wears a white bandana
and hoop earrings,
a look of placid beauty.
Behind her, sunlight
spangles through leaves
like drifting bubbles.
When lunchtime is over,
she stands up, follows
other hoers to the field
to hoe the hot afternoon
into striking bells.
Jianqing Zheng’s poetry collections include The Dog Years of Reeducation and A Way of Looking. He lives in the Mississippi Delta where he edits Valley Voices: A Literary Review.
Photo by VH S on Pexels.com.
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