Poems of Nature and Humankind

In Alamosa, Monte Vista, Bosque del Apache
she strums her mandolin and writes long letters
to God and you. She’s not in Eden

though yellow-headed blackbirds sing
from the reeds. Milkweed spills floss
down her shoulders and arms. “I might be

a yokel,” she writes, “but I’ve heard drinkers
singing in the best bars in New Mexico,
barbers giving buzzcuts, tortoises snuffling.”

She knows what God doesn’t—your jittery
heartbeat, your secret hopes. On a pole,
an eagle waits, washes of gold on his head

and back. He turns his head, beak of a killer,
cold eye looking. It would be better
if you were a coat rack, a trundle bed.

You’re tired of driving on gravel roads.
Step out of your car. Pelicans fly
above a blue oxbow. You see lupines,

rabbitbrush, pronghorns stopped at the edge
of the sky. You smell of self and sulfur,
ribs aching, red dirt on your dangling hands.