Featured in Vol.4 Issue 1 | The Spring 2015 Edition
Diptych on New Mexico
by Kael Moffat
1. Along I-40, Outside Gallup
Beside bones of coyotes bleached like saints,
Beside blood dried on concrete like wine on lace,
Beside tufts of fur strewn like abandoned censers,
Beside weeds piquant as incense,
Beside posts and beams staked like crosses,
Beside mesas rising to the sun like basilicas,
The liturgy of space, the chant of tires
2. El Morro Mesa
The Holy Land is a mistaken
Distinction because this desert outcrop,
Half a world away, is itself a temple,
A home, a haven, a pilgrimage,
Even today. Smaller sister of Zuni,
Black, and Acoma, she rises above
A sea of sage, yucca, creosote,
Bunch grass, juniper, silence.
Brother Diamondback suns himself
On the abandoned pueblo’s stones.
Its gray face has been etched by the People,
And wayfaring Spaniards, French, Americans,
Who all knelt at her shaded pool of acrid
Water that seeps from the stone,
Bitter grace for those who thirst.
