As Mourning Doves Persist

I inherited you, brothers of barbed wire like the furry dogs dragged home and sisters of consent to anxiety, yet this is the holiday of hands, of arroyo clay, pie crust and dough when finally we settle and the dining is palatial, appetizers made of empathy, dinner of  generations' woe songs.

There's a poetry reading on St. Patty's Day in Santa Fe. Promise of blood orange Campari on the rocks. Intoxication not long forgotten. Keith Jarrett at the piano on the radio in my car. Head bowed to the keyboard with the eyes closed... ...Today day laborers wait in the shadow of Our Lady at the sanctuary, circled by roses filling vases that never empty. On the steps of the Cowgirl Hall of Fame, a woman in blue plaid kilt blows into bagpipes. I idle at the intersection and study this day so clear, every outline is illuminated. Thin white dog tail wagging in a car with Indiana plates. Wispy- haired toddler waving one pudgy fist. Excerpted from  The Shape of Caught Water available from Red Mountain Press or directly from the author (505.670.4327) http://redmountainpress.us/

My daughter places a clear bottle filled with water on the steps.  Its shoulders  and torso hold all the world.  She puts  the bottle in the window  of a clothing store.  The mannequin’s ankles  are bare, feet wear no shoes. Cars pass and through the glass are distorted. Squat shot  transformed  to double decker bus of blue. Purposefully placed, the vessel. In the video the music praises her hands. By-passers are taller, thinner.  The cupboard of the world  opens its  shutters and the rain falls out. We carry whole armloads of clean laundry passing, exclaiming at the imbalance of the weather in the world, in the bottle. The sun arrives.  The sturdy neck supports her thesis and I play her recycling soliloquy again,  drink  my orange juice from a round glass  etched with  a mailbox with our name  and a carving  of a girl with a lasso  ...

He ran around hurdles instead of over them when his fright caught up to him. She typed her entire novella on her smartphone. Skated as if an Olympic contender. When she folded into her skin tight skin, into  her knees and spun on the ice in her sequins it was impossible to know her thoughts.  He climbed  the ladder to the roof to retrieve  the soggy leaves  from the canales. There he found  a tiny metal car -  midnight blue with doors that  opened and shut. She hadn't spoken to her sister in a dozen years. The address like a place holder in ink in her address  book. He was color blind. He wore the tattoo of his indecision like a vendor.  He enjoyed movies out; everyone wearing  the same colors in the dark. She imagined herself a book artist, folded spines with lithe fingers, rounded and stitched  with burlap  raffia like wheat against red sunsets. She cut out profiles of sea. ...