Woman with God


                    Just the ridged hat moving
in the six-foot-tall grass,
                                        leaning windward,
          making the sun into coin, making
gold his search.
          And under it, his breathing,
and under that,
                    the others.

Does god glance over his shoulder,
          feeling the breath of his followers?
          Blue Eyes, they chant,
          White Skin, and Hat, the ridged hat.


          Dios, the man swears, tripping in the grass.

She is picking beans when they ask
                                                            for virgins.
          She is so young her brother picks
          the top of the pole.
But she is not so young.
                                        She and her brother do play,
once in a pool—twice in a pool.
          Who knows? Go, they tell her.
                    God waits.
                                        She goes.

                              Gold or god? One letter.
But who spells it, and who reads?
                                                            The lost city,
                    as lost as heaven,
                                                  as his way,
as the river of metal hats peaked
          as vulvas go on into the night,
                                                            and does not
                                                            stop for him.

                    A ghost march passes him
          in the dark grass,
one man by one man,
                              each possessed, after centuries,
                                        father after father,
                                        possessed by gold,
          and none of them hearing his fall from the horse.

She is made to eat
what he eats: the curled worm, toadstool
          trapped in matted paste, and dirt.
                    Manna or manana he calls it,
some sound.
                    God food.
          The taste is not bad, she says.
          She eats it all.

                    The horse lies sun-swollen and bird-thick.
He weeps before it, he bows,
touching the hoof,
          then the shank
          where the peavine wraps it,
tripping legs as long as a man's leg and arm together.

                                        The tail,
bunched at the rump, shivers
          at his touch, a tendon unstrung.
                    They see him, they see it,
                    giant, a god's animal.

          How many days do they walk after
and around him, silent?
                    Grasshopper Head, they whisper,
                    near-blasphemy.
                                        They put her with him,
the near-woman, and leave the grain
          to sour,
                              only so much of the moon left.
She says Yes, this is Him
                              and she swings her hips
                              as if already fruited.

                              He is hunted—that's what he thinks.
The woman is bait.

                    The rustling, the whispering
wells in the heat,
swells like his tongue stuck
to his cheek.
                    He imagines himself meat,
          his own ear
                              the curl of a worm, him eating
him. But never god.
                              He takes what food they leave,
                              washes it in the river.

Gold lights the water
          until the river's silver.
                              Clouds hang far off and arid,
and a worn moon,
                              the whole world's moon,
                              wipes the blue.

                                                  She stands
behind him, washing, washing,
                              every move the same,
                              she must learn all god's work.

Then he wades into the middle.
          He lies down there with his hands out
                    and it isn't like the horse wheeling
                    at the snake and his falling,
the last shout of a compadre.

                                                  The death
uncurls.
                    His hat floats.

                                        And when she knows
what he's done, she shouts and points
to the grass
                    so they turn away,
                    so she can say a cloud came

and strapped him to it,
                    so she doesn't have to
          repeat his sinking herself,
                    so she can stay
god-filled.
                                        Though after the first grey,
                                        the baby's eyes
                                        go black,
                                                            her brother's.

from Treason, Zoo Press, 2002.