From Clots of Blood

FROM CLOTS OF BLOOD

            I.   Under your feet

                        the gorge of voices:

                                    some of gossip,

                                    some of gnosis.

                        You sort between them.

            II.   In a midnight ricochet of doubt and pain

                        women cross red clay

                        in mantillas of guilt.

                        You follow their mollusk existence,

                        their stale smiles, teeth of maize,

                        to the Santos that hang on doors like garlic.

                        Behind the doors you hear

                        the low monologue of mass,

                        a rhapsody of stigma.

                        In the communion of death

                        you watch this equinal race

                        dismount and flee into shells

                        of mystery and silence,

                        church and chatter,

                        earth and whispers

                        in the gorge of voices

                        under your feet.

            III.  At sunrise

                        you hear sandstone crumble

                        down mesa cliffs.

                                    --C.S. Cholas

                                       1976 New Mexico