Clayton Eshleman, 1962

Printed in Tokyo, Japan
Cover design by Will Petersen

RED SHOES

Her fingers on my collar
                       poinsettias in autumn
crackling of reeds bent into baskets
o dry mouth of lily

                       we walk through
fingers tearing corn, four men joking
odor of bubbling pozole under a calve's head
knitted with flies

                       I'd talk with you
but your name is Spain

                       your eyes lift
toward Barcelona where your mother
glides a dusktime patio
birds
          in every hand

ETZATLAN

One who lived
here as girl
now returns for
her child, this
hell of dry
dust soil a
god can mean

yellow bleeding
Christ, and
cold feet to
lay down head
That woman moved

close to me one
evening on plaza
as we watched
them dully entering
the church &

softly said
Will you put her
in your book?

Her daughter
tagging round
our legs
           Old
bandannaed woman
crossing her bones

Or you birth-mark
a death's-head

Clayton Eshleman