poetry
by Kelli J. Christenson
Terlingua District Teaching Rhyme
(Official Version)
—after Millay
Heft of flask, and dust of burro
Train to hub and back, and sparrow
Song tomorrow.
Winze and shaft on truck and pulley,
Quarry cart to furnace alley,
Rock in trolley.
Ore as cinnabar is blood-red; Ore retorts as sil-
ver (not red);
Ore, we're kindred.
Heft of flask, and strength of burro Feet, and
future seams: the marrow
Of tomorrow!
The Desert Is Hot And Full Of Texas
80 miles of South on the highway,
water and rumcake. Limedust. Scrub.
The Border Patrol station at northbound
traffic; agents, young men in clean jaws
and pistols, impassive under their hats. (Will
stand on both sides of your car.) But long first:
limestone drift-hills, the weather-combing
roundedness of heat and air
over once marine horizons; unlovely
mountains, dumps of tailings stones, ar-
royos ore-dug—the holdings of
the view from the east face of a mansion's
gallery porch; thin-soil pan for
sotols and candelillas, greasewood,
cactus (liquors and waxes, kindling,
flowers, even in a desert)—and then
the small tin thunder of bird-maize, for
the quail, motoring in, with their fox-calls
and the mercuric white
of their cotton-wisp hats—
16
Cenizo
Third Quarter 2015