Trickster stands
at the homesteader’s door
crumbling straw-laced clay walls around him
looks back

as through a viewfinder

he pulls from the view
a shining dirt floor
smooth     cool to the sole

across the Rio Grande
a far bank of sand
a scattering of low adobes

        someone’s cracking
        piñons with his teeth
        at a kitchen table
                                                it is you
        gone

        fourteen years and two months
        and it is you         still using your mouth
        to conquer a small corner of the world

                  I say your name     hear
                  your voice rumble past me

        unconnected

                  I want to know
                      are you whole
                                                      alone

        do you have your meds
                  how do you fill
                                                          the emptiness

                  a wild mustang roaming free
                                                              you are saying
                  an unbridled equus

                          as though I’m not two feet away you go right on

                  bit no longer rubbing his jawbone raw       a feral weed