Walking away from a church
in Hernandez,
I saw what was soft
about the hard.
So I climbed inside
a steer’s skull, and cycled
through the cochlea pathways
that pressed against my toes
and fingers.
I covered my
face and hands with
the odor of
sand and oil paint, and
wandered the hallways
sifting through the grains
of dust and color. I
pulled my body up
to the cheekbone’s rim and
balanced awkwardly on
the edge of a nasal ridge.
Peering out, I filled my lungs with baked air,
and viewed New Mexico
through its hollow
eye socket, dried clean
by searing sun and
acid wind that painted
with a pallet of earth
and sky.
