the westward way — the way the west

was waiting, wild, way out, wasting

space with all its obvious placeness:

its dust and deadly colored canyons

contrast against the wide horizon

and winds scratch the orange earth

cross the highway where sands storm

above the asphalt. a tall-tale town name

on a roadside sign made me mark

that lot of texas dirt as dearer than

the rest. another spot we stopped

to see what all the maps and keys

left nameless. the thing was past the arizona

border, on a hilltop. the billboards kept

the mileage, lapping our dashboard's lazy

meter. for a dollar each — two dollars —

we went back behind the gift shop.

we saw it: what we saw, whatever

it was — some poor mother mummy or

otherwise a nothing-funny something

saved to excite the guidebook. the last exit

for kitsch to busy kids amid boring badlands.

before we left I bought a balsam-carved

kachina — a prayer-built doll I barely recalled

from my mother's mother's odd collection

I played with as a boy too young to reckon

magick. the doll — no toy — my blue paint

faced, feathered patron saint with toothpick spear,

dyed leather gear, stakes circles from skies —

the little card the cashier supplies says so

and why — a slip stuffed in the icon's box,

a prayer packed up with styrofoam.

that night, in bed in the hotel room,

you fall asleep next to me, awake and alone;

I'm alone in the desert my memory's known

by blood, where stars constellate a home.