Pass

High fog hides Goat Mountain's peak
and casts a glow the color of rotting pearls
to blacken a row of digger pines, transforming them
from twisted sentinels on guard in a line
to a great beast's bottom teeth
fresh with arterial blood.
Selves we made who saved lives
quail at the roar of wind we remember from before.
All is quiet here except in our minds.

Old Colusa

Over the green levee to the bench -- it's missing a plank, 
as well as an inscription thanking some lance corporal for his death
in some rock farm thousands of miles East.

The bench is simple and was once red; from it we can watch
the Sacramento glide by: a shattered, nickel-hued mirror -- clear
on this December day overhung with mottled gray.

Make a silent wish as we tip our beer to men we held dear.
We'll kiss each other before it's too late
under trees bare of leaves, by water swift as fate.

La Resistencia

"Tu puño es rosa,
pero está en la muñeca izquierda."

So averred Placa
as we screamed around the fountain

surmounted by Our Lady of Death.
I tossed a nickel in

from the scrub side of her ride --
a fucking e-Golf, homes!

So this is the town of Juarez,
where my sister and I

dream into being an army
of girls; they throng the street,

each bearing an obsidian blade.
Los caballeros bar the doors and draw the shades.

Indian Knife

Obsidian blade,
sinew, and antler:

a knife made
by a Wintu-Yuki

sits on the shelf.
Letters above spell

the family name.
This winter's rain

drove the deer
into your barn,

you complain.
They raided the place,

spreading straw
across the dirt lane

that winds up to your
dilapidated kitchen door.

Wood

Kindling the ax split
sits by an old gray stump
in a pile.  Make a fire.
The sparks rise
heavenward.  A knot
in a seasoned log
looks back, startled,
like an eye
suddenly aware
it isn't part of a pair.