By: Ron Pullins
Her rocks roll from the sack
Her rocks roll from the sack —
A paper bag —
Roll across the table.
Light as wind bounce across the table —
Like pumice stones spit from the earth and cooled —
Bounce across the table.
But bones, not stones
From paper bag G1-9506
Bagged in March last year.
Sonoran desert, US side —
Perhaps once resting against sequoia —
In Sonoran shade.
Found scattered by animals —
Let’s say —
Food for the desert.
A lumbar bone, perhaps. A clavicle.
Something from the hip —
Female. Young. Hispanic.
Perhaps lost. Thirsty. Waiting your return—
I’ll double back with water —
For Bonita, let us say.
He leaves. I’m sorry.
I’ll be back
I’m sorry you are here.
It is America, she says —
I made it to America.
How much I’ve dreamed America.
Drop rocks back in the sack —
The bag G17-9-56 —
No other name is known.
The secret of your photograph
The reflection of boat Is better than mere boat And part of boat Is better than it all As if just some part of it Makes us create the whole — In the water then The reflection of the boat Gives us both boat And what’s not boat Combining thus the boat With its idea — I like the colors there Both boat and its reflection in the water This windless day I pull the quiet oars in water As you lie back And follow where I row.
Ron Pullins is a writer, poet, and playwright living in Tucson AZ whose works have been read or produced on stage at theaters across the country including Madlab, Mildred’s Umbrella, Whistler in the Dark, Rebelyard, Revolution Theater, No Shame Theater, Guinea Pig Theater, Actors Studio of Newburyport, and Abbie Hoffman Died For Your Sins Festival, Midwest Dramatists, among others. His fiction and poetry have appeared in Shenandoah, Kansas Quarterly, on line at Box of Jars, Sourland Review, Steeltoe Review, Oasis, WildWords, Gyroscope, Stoneboat, Apricity and Dark Ink. "I currently live in (hot) Tucson, and thoroughly love the diversity here. Obviously we are close to the border and this poem deals with the culture that surrounds us, of migrants and their journeys north. The desert is vast and empty and dangerous. Remains like those in the poem are all too frequently found. This poem, 'Her rocks roll from the sack,' is a small tribute to those who love this country enough to want to take the dangerous journey north to be a part of it. 'The secret of your photograph' is a poem that was inspired by a photographer friend who took a number of pictures of boats around Newburyport MA where I used to live. What intrigues me most is the complexity of both a thing and the image of the thing that her photograph captures. I read it and feel its fugue-iike nature, being pulled down into that region of mind that makes and holds onto perception. But I also likes how it ends with almost indifference to the thought, to the idea, and instead rests with a moment in the real world. The visual world ends and I hear the quiet sound of oars."