this is the place where
grain trains came
fruit cars
vegetable cabs
here
unloaded,
warehoused
under a cliff
covered with graffiti
the tracks
a walking path for urbanites
surrounded by
small plots
free
city gardens
I watch from across the river
while a few hoe and clear, harvest root vegetables
Someone, can't tell man or woman, stands
stretches, stares to
where we are
under the Maria Pia
I think the gaze isn't for us
on this low river trail
but directed up
under the bridge's foot
where a palm-sized quinta,
barn,
a working farm,
remains
Food is expensive, Luis says,
since the trains stopped coming,
the warehouses closed.
