Coming Home From Dalena Farms
- 47 minutes ago
- 1 min read
/ Third Place, 2026 Plentitudes Prize in Poetry /
memory is a heavy pair of
work boots that sieve the dirt.
with turkey shit & feathers in the sole.
with the guts of a scurrying roach.
the blue chevy truck pulls in.
tires roll in gravel & thorns
with longhorn beetles & frogs.
their bellies turned to the sun.
my grandfather worked with bucket & brush.
an old man beside big-shouldered birds,
he scrubbed feeders in a hundred & nine degrees.
birds tilted heads to drink, let gravity pull.
the smell of dung stuck to his warm pañuelo.
evenings we shared lemon gatorade.
he unspooled sunrays,
tended squash, chile fresno.
in textile we stitched lizard eyes.
in memory we live
in prismlight & I bring huaraches, tweezers.
I pluck grays from his head, strands
strewn across a dorsal wrist & finger nub.
this routine breaking of the body.
now, he looks to the hallway mirror
& the memory is a faded tongue of leather,
is jícara filled with goat’s milk, is a bowl
of soup offered to his dead brother.
aricept on the counter, there
are tears in his filmy eyes &
over the rearview,
a blue rosary hangs.
three holes through an olive cross.
where christ arms, christ legs should be.
my god, my god, why
have you forsaken me?
& now beneath the moonless sky,
he tells his mirror-self:
There will be bullets.
& now around his lips glows
a soft salt rim.
mama,
mama, I’ll shoot
the shadow man.
