I slept in a cave and dreamt that I found a coyote print
next to my head in the morning. Or rather, I slept in a cave
and found a coyote print next to my head in the morning.
The mockingbird at dawn chastised me for forgetting
my dreams. When I woke and saw the moon finally risen
and the sun cusping, I thought: circle with a dot in the middle
and watched the brightening sky from the cave while a dove
ate red ants outside the entrance. Then I gathered vertebrae
of a long downed cow from under chollas and juniper.
Every bright spot on the mesa was a little bone aeroplane
(which I picked up) or some femurish hunk of what used to be
mobile (which I left behind). Nearby on boulders stick deer
and coyote, an upside down man, plus my initials carved
next to the year 1930. I threw my leg over a rock and my hip
cramped down hard as if to lock me into place. I stayed
like that, astraddle, until the pain released me to the ground.
—
Lisa Gill is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Poetry and author of five books of poetry. She is the founder and executive director of Local Poets Guild and makes her home in “The Projects,” a new warehouse theater and home for poetry in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
200 New Mexico Poems 