january with long shadows
we wait out
september rain
in a church with a tin roof
a thousand angels i say
running all at once
leaking roof
into old coffee can
at rear of the church
tinny metronome
keeping beat
to a sermon on the devil
which is not
loud enough
to overcome the rain
january
Michele drives
sun in our eyes
hers focused
like purple fields
she turns north
onto old road to
ortiz cemetery
long shadows
a breeze we feel
but do not see
we visit her abuelita
new headstone
smiling picture at center
remember her
lessons on
family history
this one married that one
we are cousins to the first
they had three kids
second one died of a
burst appendix
the two girls
married brothers
from san miguel
they are related
to your mom
in the end
we are all cousins
my own abuelita
a shadow away
distant at winter sunset
a dormant grass
rust red
beside her settling grave
a sinking wound
after seventeen years
i barely remember
that far back
i pray
this red grass
was there then too
then my tio Willie
who drove a school bus
subtraction tells us
it has run without him
for nine years
every morning
a yellow bus
passes our house
i think of him
before the sun rises
my mother in law
remembers
my tio taking
the basketball team
to cotopaxi
his grandson Manuelito
did not have shoes
he loved that kid
drove that bus to canon city
and bought him a pair
like rain
i do not know
what a september church
in a meadow
has to do with
january
is it about shadows
longer in winter
how i wait
for them
to form
