Anthony Gabriel

Crop Study

There are no billboards to line the roads adjacent that skirt the outside of the pecan 

groves that dominate the beginning of the drive east on I-10 to El Paso. In New
Mexico, the once proclaimed “wasteland,” the stubborn, rigid land produces

a laminated chart that shows the kids where the fruit they eat comes from—
where it is grown locally:

bell peppers, beans, asparagus, chiles, carrots, cucumbers, tomatoes, lettuce, cabbage,
corn, onions, potatoes, and pecans. In the same lunchroom where the chart exists is 

another food chart showing that the future needs farmers and workers to fill
their plates: one part grain, one part 

fruit, one part protein, one-part veggies: one-part
digging dirt from the fingernails of family hunger: because more people 

are needed to do the labor: meaning it is better to
be prepared—

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Anthony Gabriel is an MFA candidate at New Mexico State University. He is the current poetry editor of the lit magazine, Puerto Del Sol.