Member-only story
Poetry
Myths and Magic
In Taos the men talked in clusters of myths and legends,
living out truths stranger than fiction
The one supposedly pursued by the mob
killed a rattlesnake and also fixed the toilet,
maybe even at the same time
The one trained to kill communists
who arrived in Florida with a backpack
and left later on with millions
had seen too much of war
but carried a pistol in his pocket and
gave us a map of Colorado after we gave him dinner.
Gratitude is a cup of many potions.
In the San Luis valley we had an afternoon
of wild top secret tales from a man
who tried to give us all his weed, then
disappeared like morning mountain mist
or some Viking god of mischief
In the Rockies a couple on a “leave of absence”
seemed to have been one step behind us everywhere
playing banjos in a homemade tent full of ghosts
