Hotsprings Jesus

Everyone is talking
at the hot springs on Easter.
They are talking about their lives.

No one is talking about Easter.
No, nothing about Jesus at all.

Oh look! Your toenail polish came off!
We’ll repaint them while you sleep.
I’m a light sleeper, he said.
You’re just saying that to deter us.

Her work in interior design.
Feng Shui?
Yes, a little of that. More intuitive.

Her husband drops her son
off at school, not her, no way.
He drives against the grain, wrong lane,
unable to merge into Baseline traffic.

May my son live.

We call them the L towns.
Longmont. Lafayette. Loveland.
Someday they’ll merge into one.
No, the locals are fighting that.

Her husband’s skillful hands.
I design. He builds.
I call him Magic Man.

I work three jobs in Durango,
serve ginger carrot soup to the rich,
live in a trailer.

Grizzly bears in binoculars
charging grandchildren.
Run! he yelled at her. Run!
Run? You should become a stone!

The silence holding the mountains.
Pietà. We hear it.

The water is hot.
We lift ourselves in and out of it.
In and out of it.

We don’t want to listen.
We rise out of the voices.
This is not a baptism.

2019