This is a crazy little poem about Salt River,
which you have to go through to get to White Mountain.
Go up through Globe, then the Salt River and the Snowflake.
"Salt River."
Chasing Indians, you pass the miners
at Crystalide hanging by their lips.
Your teeth are braids and filigree.
And there they are, a whole Sunday way, pineapples
for heads, running naked through the rocks,
fornicating, painting their bodies red, baking cakes.
The torch in your pocket sears a map on your leg.
You curse your horse that above ran away
through the orchard loaded with cameras.
You think of your relatives, like pictures in bed.
But your hand swings out in front,
a history written on its palm.
Swelling, growing bigger, leading you on, only a few
more leagues, straight down over the rocks.
Already you can hear their music, the grunts,
barefoot they're leading out their best virgins,
breasts exposed, veiled, not at all like them.
A few more feet, you drop, then are
running, a cat across the land through children
blowing whistles, beating pots, cheering your wounds.
Kiss in a light too strong, too white for photographs.