Red rocks line hillsides
casting shadows on mobile home parks
where eight year olds walk with limps
from hip replacements of years before
reminders of wages once made
mounting the backs of angry bulls.
The woman without electricity
without running water,
feeding the mouths of eight of her own
takes on the burden of feeding our mouths,
the fifteen who mix the cement for her new home,
because we are family too.
The elder who knows no English
watches as we work
says nothing, only smiling
when we attempt to speak with her.
our parting words: ‘see you later grandmother’
hers, ‘thank you my children’
because we are family too.
We meet the man whose heart has forgotten
how to carry oxygen to the rest of his body
but it has not forgotten how to love.
The man who came here to die,
instead found meaning in the selfless hearts he encountered,
mirrors of his own.
The man who cannot bring himself to leave
because he is family now too.
We meet the man who totes a gun
so you won’t suspect his soft heart.
He leads us through New Mexico mud
to crumbling cliffs
where toes tempt edges.
I cannot tell who is more solid
the man or the rock we stand upon.
Atop mountains
the wind frantically kisses my face
begging for the attention it cannot demand below.
Entire towns splayed out at our feet.
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