Losing Translation

—Tierra Amarilla, New Mexico: site of the land grant
uprisings of the 1960’s

The billboard at the outskirts of the village
reads: Tierra o Muerte. Alfalfa blooms
in late frost against the edges of the For Sale sign
that leans in the yard, and the house, too,
as though accepting this geometry. The fields
migrate into the hills, land farmers have let
go, or tried, and failed, to take back

because it refuses
anything but sage, its scent climbing
into the lungs. All day, the neighbor’s dog sleeps
in an abandoned pick-up, a blue blotch
against the adobe, rain, wind owning its corners.
The fence burns with rust

beside the picnic table where I bend over
a sparrow, its feathers fluttering. My limbs
linger, misunderstanding, until
I wrap its body in a sock
and carry the bird to the field, the boundary
between losses. A magpie
discovers it lying in the thistle,
picks at its feathers, calling out
a language only the wind decodes.

copyright 2007 Susan Varnot
bio
Barnwood magazine
Contents 07