Costco Gringos

A poem by Marc García-Martínez

Past the MAGA caps

perched atop those viejos’

grey hair.

Then mu-mu waddling ladies

with more ketchup

and kitty litter than

they can ever

need.

Past pinkish white ankles,

flip-flopped shorts and

discolored tattoos—too

many tattoos.

Turn to three drooping

shouldered teens,

mouthing and tonguing

their food.

Giving pizza looks at me,

eyes deep sockets of lethargy,

they see me passing

in loathing.

¡Babosos!

What are you doing

drinking Pepsi at 9:30 a.m.?

*      *      *

A grandchild of Revolution-era immigrants from Western and Northern Mexico, Marc García-Martínez is a Professor of English at Allan Hancock College in Santa María, California, and a Lecturer for the Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies at the University of California at Santa Barbara. He is the author of The Flesh-and-Blood Aesthetics of Alejandro Morales: Disease, Sex, and Figuration (San Diego State University Press, 2014), the first full-length scholarly study in English on the innovative work of Chicano writer Alejandro Morales.