Economy
By Laurie Barton


We sat in a carpet of acorns, two seventh graders
ditching school, again. Phil asked if I remembered
our fourth-grade trip to the wicki-ups, reed baskets

the size of camping tents. Turned upside down for
families of acorn-eaters—the first to settle the valley,
to meet the mission padres. I've never forgotten

my brush with pre-history, how I stood in the cool
reed-gloom looking up at a smokehole. Imagined
the parents' embrace in the rhythm of crickets, ten

children soundly sleeping. What kind of school did
they ditch? What did they mix into acorn liqueur?
(like Phil & I lacing our cocoa with stolen Kahlua)

What kind of names did they have? What happened
when Mugwa lusted for Ootma but she wanted Lut?
Phil snapped me out of it: listen! Then explained all

we'd face in our 60s: whole bands of hungry teens
sleeping in the ruins of Shopping Island. Campfire
smoke, deadly sign for us to hide. To escape being

eaten for dinner, tough old meat not allowed to live
when strong people had to scramble. Had to fight
for every nut and bug, pluck all the stubborn weeds.

Laurie Barton lives in southern California, where she teaches English to speakers of other languages and edits poetry for The Sylvan Echo (www.sylvanecho.net) Her work has appeared in Kaua'i Backstory, Phantom Seed, Snakeskin, Three Hawks Quarterly, and The Rambler. In 2008 she won the New Southerner Literary Prize in Poetry.

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