Tuesday morning at the corner store
I saw Diego wince as he reached
a flimsy wallet from the tattered pocket
of his signature work pants.

Before I could even ask, qué pasa
I glimpsed as his left arm
hung limp
from a collar swollen,
a cantaloupe on his shoulder,
under his shirt.

“A horse kick me on Wednesday”

“That’s been six days, Diego”

If he could have shrugged
he would have.

I said, “I’ll take you now.”
canceling my own work plans.
His eyes rounded at the thought
then quickly found the floor.
We’d been through this before.

Five hours later we left
the county clinic
with a script for lortab
no pharmacy would dare
to fill for an undocumented
farm hand.

The medical staff held their ground.
Diego wasn’t close enough to death
for them to do no harm,
damn them.
hippocratic hypocrites,
“no offense,”
was all the nurse could muster,
they didn’t even touch his arm.

On the ride back

home

his gaze was fixed
out the side window,
lush hills rolled to the horizon,
crops popping up as if the fields
had sprung a million verdant leaks.
It looked to him like steady work.
I hit a pot hole and he jerked.

Diego was a working drunk.
He never missed.  Could polish off
twelve cans and never slur his broken
words. His cerveza was Victoria.

But Sunday morning,
it was a fifth of gin
they found,
empty,
in the ditch,
beside him.