2013
POETRY OPEN
Honorable Mention
$25 Award

outlaw

by Chellis Glendinning 

there isn’t a poem on Earth
that can capture your wild rough bid

I shouldn’t even own a pencil

I should crawl over glass to Father Roca

you pull up my road the gravel is crackling

it is all so mundane so unforgivable of God
to send that river by your woodstove orchard
full moon climbing over La Madera mountain
ringtails curling around our ankles

begging us to just give up

I am slipping into my white dress
I am eating your tortillas
the smell of Vietnam is oozing
like cheap wine Bud Light capulín
the roar of red flags

 on the edge

 of the trees
 of possibility
 of this life

your pistol is ready
that one finger beyond the set
you say you are not afraid to die

______________________________

Chellis Glendinning lives on an organic farm outside Sucre, Bolivia. She is the author of six books, including Off the Map: An Expedition Deep into Empire and the Global Economy, and Chiva: A Village Takes on the Global Heroin Trade, both winners of National Federation of Press Women book awards.