My Mother stands eating chicken bones by moonlight
Smelling of patchouli and an old world cosmic love
She has gone to the desert again in search of the web toed shaman
Who had once tattooed her Mind’s Eye,
In exchange for a bowl of memories and three Good Deeds
When her shadow won’t let up, my Mother walks barefoot through the desert
To call upon the Old Mystic Man in her grandmother sparrow’s voice
That echoes through the Arizona canyons that whistle like the wind
Whipping through a cola can
On the tails of the Wind, the shaman appears to her, mitge-like and withered,
Ready to crack lizard eggs upon her psyche and
Read the lines on the palms of her painted Hands
Until the fried-egg Sun appears,
Calling the old Mystic into Everything
Donning her seedless melon smile,
My Mother will dance across the red vastness
Back to California
Back to Me
I will wait for her, trembling under a peyote button sky
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