Michaela Kahn

 

Flash (New Mexico)

1.
Burning hand
flash of flesh to stone
and stone in the
dry river
is never still.

2.
I never trust
movement
not trains or military
transport
(dozens, north from
Kirtland past two days):
fingers shifting pebbles
without thought.

3.
You never know
which stone is Spanish,
which Pueblo, which window onto
400 year old wall
is a lie
to hide the skeleton:
a peasant or fish.

4.
All night the brujas
writhed the winds
that shaped them,
slipped through cracks
in my breath
to hide behind
my ear/whisper
war, their hands
warmed on a dream of
stone-flash and
white-hot shattering.