"Momentary” by Crisosto Apache

a Pinacate beetle crawls away from or proceeds towards

the middle of the asphalt with no destination of place

like the wide-open grass plains moving at a millennium

speed with the furthest object the Sangre De Cristo mountains

moving slower and seeming to stand more still

against this black petroleum stripe of plain moving longer,

also having no destination of place — each object, each perspective

rotates at fifteen to twenty-five feet intervals causing a winded motion

of strings attached to the left hand sliding under the utterance

of musical notes, the music does not last forever nor do the knots

tied beside fingers, intertwining between fingers, bleeding

the fluid moves water-like in my palm and begins to twitch

in my hands and face, the movement across the plain progresses

like the air sweeping across my face

once moving forward, twice fighting back, also not lasting

forever

a peculiar projection through sound finds my ear in a high pitch

screaming goodbye, gazing back waving, unconditionally

stains of some begotten memory drips down my lap as I remember

my father, finding him in my old journals soon laid to the new fires

of that old grey stucco house

next to that house, I found myself in a memory hiding between two old trees

whose wisdom protected me from those high rising flames

in a heap of recollection my fingers leave streaks of red streams

keeping me from the tears flowing down my cheek into my mouth

so, I do not forget

traveling faster shifting faster moving this body,

underneath the wide grass plains moving longer and less still

like the blood in my hands

recalling a moment, a modification in motion wiping the water

from my face, a recollection lost on mother and father’s face,

the flow within my fingers persists and lasts against the facing

of the Sangre de Cristo and Santa Fe is only thirty miles away

"Wrong Place, Wrong Time” by Amy Irish