maria christina carmelita de la cruz

 
 
bucking the old black pickup
against heat and elevation
over washboard and runnel in hard low

radio doling sad old mexico story songs
and gritty walking rockabilly blues
true as the aching road
hot and poisonous as the heart's deep core

my young mestiza bride bundled
cold in the truck bed
wrapped in the garment she wore
first to communion
and last to the wedding bower

end of the road
i shoulder her two miles
up goat path and glaciated
boulder field to hardscrabble peak
up and up to the green pinebough cross
over the girl child lily--
stillborn
dark and fatherless
in this northern anglo town--
so mary might hold those tiny
bones and grieve no more forever
under the watchful eye
of sacajawea's ghost

ascending through scree
a trio of haggard old goats
look me over slowly
i step aside and
the last one brushes
my arm in passing
regards me carefully
with a milky eye
and from its
bearded mouth
drops one
delicate yellow
tundra flower
at my feet