fifty years fly by

my sister grew breasts first, my Irish twin a year older
we’d been dressed alike until she went to the tuck-in
white blouse, loosely nipped into her slim waistline
I in the sixth grade Catholic jumper of blue navy wool
jealous of her and my cousin who
both tied elastic around rib cages
high up under fledgling breasts to imitate a bra
they practiced kissing each other and me
so we’d all be ready when a boy came along, lips,
bra straps, breasts
I was happy to be included
and then mine appeared like mushroom caps
one bigger than the other the summer
I was eleven, before my period
before any talk about anything but these boys
who would arrive, according to my sister
and my cousin
my breasts budded screaming as if
on fire, nipples bleeding from
rapid growth or shirts or swimsuit rubbing.
My mother leaned down like
a scientist and poked one nipple when I showed
her the pain and the blood and she said she’d get me
a bra, but she forgot. The babies, all of them and my
brother well, we just didn’t go shopping, so she took
me to her room, rummaged her chest of drawers and
out came a crinkly white thing, try this on, she said, this
might fit— Had she been saving it for one of us?
I bypassed A cup that day, straight to this raggedy
prize that made my sister jealous, yea—she’d be stuck in A’s for
quite a while—we could never trade or share our bras.
At 16 I gave up underwear, rubbery girdles, garter belts and nylons
hand-me-down or cheap and awkward things
my own revolt against the patriarchy; the public school principal
always a male, dictated from on high that girls
would wear skirts with nylons, garter belts or girdles, and bras
I challenged the stupid man with loose clothing, bare legs or tights
and never did get busted, honor student invisible—they let me walk the hall
—Let them suffer was my motto, upsetting men with my free breasts
as if my body were their business, let them be upset or just not look
and, oh, yes, they did arrive
the boys in cars, on bikes, on foot—nice ones, sweet idiots and geniuses
one madman who pulled me into the bushes, whispering
how dare you walk around without a bra? How dare you walk like that?

New B&B in Anton Chico (for Georgia)

wow— an arrow-slotted fortress
for Comanche attacks
we walk through plumbing parts
almost step on her old porch lantern
stacked doors lean, the floor a domestic dump
grandmothers stood on stools to level muskets
at natives shooting arrows
massacre, slaughter, death: the entire
town of Anton Chico twice leveled by
Comanche serious about staying in that
neck o’ the woods; can’t say I blame them
the invaders’ history lightly dusted
with cocoa powder earth in almost ruins
this garage holds boxes of old
glass like popsicles
deep cracked walls
mirror fissures on the land
a pastiche of plaster cracked
a reminder everywhere
of sharing blood

She, this village, howls witch winds through crazy teeth
pantomimes circles, spirals, vortices to an eye
I feel looking as we kick around in the dust
our feet like glass, our bones aging
crumbling walls smell of grandfathers under paternal stars
in the melting house she says, you know why this room has pink walls
my room as a kid, she smiles an old memory
bright sun, mother and father dancing figurines
peach walls like the rolling land speckled with ochre
agave blues and greens in mica-glitter slabs, black rock
we scramble all day, drinking water in her silver Nissan
the land grant rich with flagstone and occasional free-roaming cattle
red heads also, curious about why we visit the Pecos
their piece of heaven and sun meandering under curved-rock
shelves, layered like cakes, deep pools good as gold

On the porch, old stoves await re-installation to fire
up a generation molten with cedar and piñon
in the revitalized living room a snowy-haired ghost
gets impatient for Willie Nelson as
stars drip down to cover this million acre bowl
In the kitchen we play Scrabble and bake
blackberry pie, cook steaks on the wood stove firebox
Georgia awaits installation of the new
on-demand water heater for
second and third bathrooms
to give it all another go
new guest rooms for those who will paint and write
who will pay for lodging and wandering in
perfect piñon silence—who may be
driven around on the mesa, the hills, and to the Opera while
ghosts serve as gatekeepers to this hard won land
little dervishes of wind playing, just messing around