Half a decade in the making

Five years ago I flew to Amarillo.  My aunt Irma drove me to Lubbock. It was not far, an hour and a half -- 110 miles. It does not matter which measurement you prefer, time or space. I was too scared to drive. Too terrified I would die on the highway somewhere between these two Northwest Texas towns that are branded into me like the XIT into Panhandle cattle. You were faraway. Not with me, never with me. I hated you those days. I hated you. I hated Covenant Hospital. I hated the long nights. I hated the ocean water that swallowed up entire coasts in Indonesia, Thailand. For five years I tried to write this. It finally happened last August. And just a few weeks ago I drove without fear on New Mexico highways. It had been seven years since I got in a car and just drove on interstates, watching the landscape morph from southern New Mexico desert to eastern New Mexico llano. Death doesn't scare me anymore. It took you. You are there now. Along with so many other people I love. The empty llano doesn't scare me anymore either. I'll accept this brand. It is home.

New Mexico Homecoming


Fever brings the glitter of starlight.
Irises open to the night.
“Look in his eyes.”
And the doctors continue to advise.
Open and empty as the llano estacado,
we know.
The lines engraved deep
in our hands foretold this sleep.

Years of cotton and cattle are passed.
The unfamiliar work of silence and stillness is here at last.
“Listen,” I whisper, mouth against ear.
“The distant shadow of December is here.

The fields are red and bare;
our livestock was sold at the fair.
In Dilia, our families lay waiting for the story.
For you, we know, Texas is Purgatory.”