Caroline Giles Banks

Thinking Twice

Old enough to remember Dolores Huerta,
her work for the U.F.W. union, the strikes
and sit-ins for farm laborers’ rights.
Perched on low back stools,
we gathered around kitchen counters,
waffling whether to boycott
just table grapes—or go all the way
and eschew California wines, too.

From harvest-ready fields
cell phone videos loop
today’s raids and sweeps.
Masked deputies absent ID
badges call a lone farm hand’s
pruning shears a “weapon.”

I want to get off my La-Z-Boy,
go down to strawberry fields,
hand out multilingual flyers, the bullet
points roaring rights for due process.

hand-picked berries
in the blender—
fingertips press "pulse"

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About the Author

Caroline Giles Banks, born in Boston, Massachusetts, is a cultural anthropologist whose poetry is often informed by her anthropological training and research. She is the author of six poetry books, including The Clay Jar: Haiku, Senryu and Haibun Poems, The Weight of Whiteness: A Memoir in Poetry, and Picture a Poem: Ekphrastic and Other Poems. She lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

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