Pilar's Mitsubishi

Blue, navy blue blur:  A pick-up
truck, low and not for show.
Gray nebula blossoms:  the hood's

adorned with a corona from headlights
to wipers.  It was etched there during
Saturday afternoons by the salt air --

when ocean breezes ruffle her hair.
Once a week she parks there off 48th.
That secret thrill:  lanky surfers

changing, unashamed, out of wet suits
on the beach parking lot.  Manuel,
her husband, knows nothing of this

ritual, nor of the one cigarette she has
for dessert before starting home. The engine
purrs a low, Olmec-panther rumble

sparking memories of her father.
He drove it in Clovis, bussing field hands
in the back -- friends and cousins --

to their dreams of lives for their children,
who would never need fear la Migra.
A smell of retail and greenbacks

wafts in through the open driver's window
as she hurtles North, up Sixth Street.
Pilar never smokes at home.