Ad patres
I am sidewalk chalk, the Crayola gasp of discovery.
I am the dusty stucco parade of houses, the false lawns in a thirsty land.
I am the ocotillo, her prickly tentacles bewitching and true.
I am scribbled margins and restless dreams; new houses and shadowy men. I am dreaming Marion, knitting her black afghan in the shadows..
"Be the hands that are missing," they say. "Remember that you represent our household," they chide.
The sublime grace of the Frozen Chosen.
The sun cracks the desert floor like a piecrust, but I am the prairie's relentless chill. I am tamales and green jello-- big sky and big shoulders.
I am my grandmother's education, cut short and tied like sausages. I am the square carpenter's pencils, these stern lead fence-posts. I am the evening snoozes in the armchairs, the silent, ponderous yearnings.
I am their perfect, singular bubble. Drifting, iridescent, and full, they watch me, whispering their hopes into the wind.
I float, as soft as a dream, until I meet them in the sky.
