Buttons

By JESSICA ADAMS

In a long, low building with a tin roof, people from this village turn clamshells into buttons. Beyond the broken windows lie middens of clamshells, punctuated with precise and uniform holes. The gravel mixes with broken shells and thick, pale unfinished buttons. There will be no work here until May, when the surf clams have again grown large enough to harvest. For now the workers are in Ensenada and San Diego, crewing on fishing boats, washing dishes in restaurants. It is a quiet afternoon. A boy is playing under a lime tree. Red and brown mountains rise up behind the gravel yard. There are buttons scattered over the graves at the other end of the village. The button factory is owned by a Japanese company, and, year after year, the finished buttons are exported to Japan. In a store carrying necessary items, in a town on that far-away coast, a woman’s fingers brush the polished calcium sewn to the front of a blue wool coat.

Buttons

Related Posts

The Bee-Eaters

GEORGINA PARFITT
The teeth of the excavator are wet. The cage opens, hovers, and grips a mouthful—some floor, some outer wall, some window frame, the glass disappearing with a tiny, tinkling sound.

A White House against a blue sky, with a watertower on top.

Two Poems by Liza Katz Duncan

LIZA KATZ DUNCAN
First the marsh grass came, then the motherwort, / then bitterberry and honeysuckle. Blackbirds, / gulls and grackles built their nests. / Mourning doves call from the eaves / of the old factory, closed during the Depression.

person with an orange bag walking through the dirt paths in a sun-spotted forest

Into the Woods

ANNE P. BEATTY
A mile into the woods, I am always slightly afraid. Fear’s lace knots the cuff of an otherwise lovely afternoon. Nights, when I peek out of the tent, the moon is a bright friend too far away to help.