By Sarah McKinstry-Brown
I cut myself out of your landscape, Albuquerque,
because you thought you had me all mapped out. There
was no canyon or Village Inn, no major intersection
that didn't know where my fault lines rested. So I packed
my suitcase and let the longitude of my grief pull me
across the country.
Of course I missed you. At times it was hard to keep
breathing without your mountains around
to mirror the white crested peaks of my heartbeat.
I don't know if it was mistake or grace that brought me
here. When the Spaniards arrived in the New World,
their boot soles were heavy with dirt from the mother country.
This is how seeds of chickpeas and wheat made their way across the Atlantic.
Maybe I arrived here stuck to the bottom of God's great invisible shoe.
Or maybe, I am more tumbleweed than free willed woman maybe
I docked into the arms of this city, my husband, byway of a careless wind.
Either way, it hasn't been easy to trade in the Rio Grande river
that rolled across your body like the Spanish rrrrrrrrr on the tongue of a Native New Mexican,
for the Missouri.
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