latero story

By Tato Laviera

(can pickers)

i am a twentieth-century welfare recipient

moonlighting in the sun as a latero

a job invented by national and state laws

designed to re-cycle aluminum cans

to return to consumer acid laden

gastric inflammation pituitary glands

coca diet rite low-cal godsons

of artificially flavored malignant

indigestions somewhere down the line

of a cancerous cell

i collect from garbage cans in outdoor facilities

congested with putrid residues

my hands shelving themselves

opening plastic bags never knowing

what to encounter

several times a day i touch evil rituals

slit throats of chickens

tongues of poisoned rats

salivating on my index finger

smells of month old rotten food

next to pamper's diarrhea

dry blood infectious diseases

hypodermic needles tissued with

heroine water drops pilfered in

slimy grease blood hazardous waste materials

but i cannot use rubber gloves

they undermine my daily profit

i am a twentieth-century welfare recipient

moonlighting during the day as a latero

making it big in america

someday i might become experienced enough

to offer technical assistance

to other lateros

i am thinking of publishing

my own guide to latero collecting

and founding a latero's union to offer

medical dental benefits

i am a twentieth-century welfare recipient

moonlighting at night as a latero

i am considered some kind of expert

at collecting cans during fifth avenue parades

i can now hire workers at twenty

five cents an hour guaranteed salary

and fifty per cent of two and one half cents

profit on each can collected

i am a twentieth-century welfare recipient

moonlighting at midnight as a latero

i am becoming an entrepreneur

an american success story

i have hired bag ladies to keep peddlers

from my territories

i have read in some guide to success

that in order to get rich

to make it big

i have to sacrifice myself

moonlighting until dawn by digging

deeper into the extra can margin of profit

i am on my way up the opportunistic

ladder of success

in ten years i will quit welfare

to become a legitimate businessman

i'll soon become a latero executive

with corporate conglomerate intents

god bless america.

Copyright Credit: Tato Laviera, "latero story" from Benedición: The Complete Poetry of Tato Laviera. Copyright © 2014 by Tato Laviera. Reprinted by permission of Arte Público Press.

Source: Benedición: The Complete Poetry of Tato Laviera (Arte Público Press, 2014)