As Mourning Doves Persist

There, a memorial on the corner to three teens killed as their coach drove them home from a tournament. The other anxious driver, reckless, failing to halt. Timeless  photographs on filigree crosses at the intersection. And here, a tattered man with a sign in his hands in the grocery parking lot. Cardboard indicating that any kind of work would do. There’s a certain stretch of road coming home from Vegas where one brother nearly died. His broken neck mended with halo and surgical screws. There, where another did succumb. Motorcycle forgetting to curve at Cimarron. Internal compass cracked, or perhaps, ignored. Alcohol poured onto the fire of what he finally could not forgive.

O noble capitol     house that Peralta built    you are long inhabited      fortress and palace promenade If trees could talk     they would whisper handfuls   multi-tongued through thick adobe walls     Spanish    Tiwa    Tewa    bugle of Confederates and curators talking of lattice and lace    wide dining table for history     you whisper us into a prince’s room Old is the adjective     First born on the square Fringed by burros carting firewood to winter casas Occupation is your middle name    Po’ Pay’s revenge for all the icons taken         Wallace’s respite muse crucifixion written in secret light Fiestas in the front yard      Wagons in the courtyard Yellow leaves still falling as legislators eased horses into stables lined     ...

Wolf Creek ski run opened today, earliest reported snowfall in the mountains in October. I vacation with five women and outside our rooms the steam off the Mother Pool spills a thick silvery liquid like mercury. Nimbostratus hover like crumpled painter’s drop cloth stained periwinkle and peach above the cold river periphery and quieted lights on the Mexican restaurant across the street where the bartender hasn’t yet begun pouring tequila or beer. Deanna says there’s a Patsy Cline tribute in town tonight to benefit an art museum named after a local watercolorist and it’s all happening on Fritz and Mabel Place. I chuckle at the street name, deciding whether to take a fourth trip down to the hot springs or simply nap. Then my daughter telephones sobbing of the inevitable break-up from her first love, and my husband claims on another line that he can navigate this as I am too far away to be able to do anything, really. Still I assure her this experience will eventually unfurl ki...