I Drink the Juice

I taste the orange juice
citrus sweet
and feel recharged and vitalized
except for a slight after-taste
that reminds me of the smell of oily pesticides
fogged on the trees one breezeless morning
and the slight salt sweat taste
dripped from the brow of Guatemalan
illegals who bend and reach 10 hours a day
And there is a dank diesel stench
of freighters and trucks that haul
the fruit some thousand miles
and the carbide smell of war and revolution
of those who unwittingly protect this
precious fuel
and the slight hot paper waxy-sided
that keeps it fresh and clean
while water runs through those stamping machines
and gushes fetid into the stream
so I may drink the product deep
and taste the juice
so bitter sweet.