by Amalio Madueño

all the way from Dulzura and all summer
the brush had been thin, dry & for a stretch
scorched to black stubble in Arroyo Segundo

the fires subsided & the rattlers came out
and the drone of the engine kept the dirt road
coming no matter how bad things got or why

until one day, in the midst of leaving everything
behind, I skidded to a stop on Otay Road
dust engulfing me & the old pickup

windows open, peering back at the diamondback
writhing out its death on the road

by Amalio Madueño

Cold moist feebly shining feminine
corporeal passive — the womanly the gentle
Sister Bride Mother Spouse confab
of beloved & lover embrace the 28^th day
vessel of sun infundibulum terrae
take in & pour out heaven
cozy up to sun’s molten seed
earthen – born silver soak up
stars for gold — your bride conceives like
whitest snow your shine chases away
the rabid dog & saves the divine child
umbra solis House of Horn muse
of dew juice sap tears sweat
blood vapor spit — grace is your principia
lunar liquor aqua mirifica purify flesh
soul circle tree root metal
aeon’s silence in incomprehensible air —
waft me on your belly sphere
slay me & you will understand

by Amalio Madueño

first, let there be a soft rain
out of the West, let there be a grey
light in the bosque and the quiet adobe
among alamosa, juniper & piñon
drenched where you once stood alone
absorbing the impossible blue behind
lensics piled above Jicarita Peak

let the ravens sweep lazily across
Cerro Rincón toward Penyasco’s pastures
emerald against clouds from the plains
above scrub oak and bramble breaks
whose essence is adumbration, their bronze –
leafed, twisted twigs filled with sombras

and sábanas billowing slow on the clothesline
teasing the tanagers just down from Colorado;
flat black water in a red olla
splaying sun’s spiral on the ceiling
and a bleary mosca walking on the pane
scribing one more arc in the day
and skittering down to rest — then to lean

back into room shadow and finger worn
pages between the solar pivots of the year,
pacific in the stupor of your bones and
release your mind to Casas Grandes and
the Grán Pimería, Paquimé to Batopilas and
Quitobaquito, then refocus with an Ah!
at chartreuse tendrils of wild plum
in the yard, the heart leaping amable
with each easy sprout from the mind

by Amalio Madueñ

I
Two kitchen lemons fused by blue green fuzz;
I hold the perfect citrus skin of one least rotten.

A distant raven sways aside Cerro del Rincón
Doubled in my sharp blue window panes.

The clean sound of water, the highway traffic upslope,
The rim of Mesa Prieta fastens me though I move.

It’s for you, the champurrado with chocolate & maiz
And this the music promised by the season arrived.

The names fall from your tongue: “buñuelos, capirotada,
Canela, piloncillo, aniz, miel virgen.”

II
Bosque path, ice crunching underfoot in leaf wreck,
here are shriveled frozen hongos sheltered in dross,

I cup your curled caps & crusted crowns
that musk up even in my cold gloved hands,

your gnarl of black stem dried and coiled,
infatuate, seeks only moist dark ground.

The departed souls of all the grasses,
Weeds, herbs, & reeds — galaxies snuffed out,

fallen seeds, husks & sepals embrace
in dark humus, exhausted of their magic.

III
During the early years wisdom was scarce.
We wrote our poems about anything we could find:

sibyls, stones, cracks in time, the temple steps,
poor home alleys or a lover’s belly.

The madness in us came & went in cadence
timed to say and keep saying the world is mind.

We saw the change, the slow explosion that is man
the river’s ride on gravel shallows whispering myth,

When the heavy blows came to level our work
we went out again to make bricks out of mud.