An acquaintance at Los Alamos Labs <br />who engineers weapons <br />black x’d a mark where I live <br />on his office map. <br />Star-wars humor…. <br />He exchanged muddy boots <br />and patched jeans <br />for a white intern’s coat <br />and black polished shoes. <br />A month ago, after butchering a gouged bull, <br />we stood on a pasture hill, <br />and he wondered with pained features <br />where money would come from <br />to finish his shed, plan alfalfa, <br />and fix his tractor. <br />Now his fingers <br />yank horsetail grass <br />he crimps herringbone tail-seed <br />between teeth, and grits out words, <br />“Om gonna buy another tractor <br />next week. More land too.” <br />Silence between us is gray water <br />let down in a tin pail <br />in a deep, deep well, <br />a silence <br />milled in continental grindings <br />millions of years ago. <br />I throw my heart <br />into the well, and it falls <br />a shimmering pebble to the bottom. <br />Words are hard <br />to come by, “Would have lost everything <br />I’ve worked for, not takin’ the job.” <br />His words try to <br />retrieve <br />my heart <br />from the deep well. <br />We walk on in silence, <br />our friendship <br />rippling away.<br /><br />Jimmy Santiago Baca<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/choices-3/
