Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico, 1941

past adobe, deep behind tumbleweed
someone shuts off a radio, as if news
of war would come over the sage, slither thru
dust and locusts. Under a pale moon
crosses gleam, in streaked light

a young girl unbuttons a hand-me-down
blouse, lets it fall to the linoleum,
thinks of her brother crawling on his belly
in the South Pacific. Her breasts swell, her
hair smells of pinyon and agave.

She hears her father playing banjo on the front porch,
thinks of her mother’s leathery skin, lank hair,
swears it won’t always be like this: nights with
nothing but the wind in the mesquite,
vows to escape, make it to a place where there is more
than sky and mountains, where women dress in high heels
and smell of roses like in movie magazines

maybe get all the way to
Albuquerque