"Custom Handmade Porcelain Dolls"

Litter the landscape
Around the canyons:
Courthouses, rock art,
And roadside lodges
Are haunted by them.

Lovely, painted clay
Hands, arms, and faces,
Churn cash registers,
Fill up their gas tanks,
Greet themselves with smiles.

Gleaming surfaces
Turn up everywhere,
Happy, malicious,
A mischievous glint
For each handmade eye.

You can, in season,
Stop beside the sign
In empty valley
And buy yourself one.
But it's not required.

Even if you're just
A tourist, even
If you can't see them,
You can take one home
With you, you are one.

Everything Eroded Away But That

"I think we crave animism. We miss it."

The last stone standing wonders
How it was whittled from bed
To shape a separate thing.
When it first stood free and clear,
Sculpture let loose from the rock,
A pillar among pillars,
Was it already itself?

And now, after so much wind,
Reduced, is it still itself?
Had any other stones cared?
Were any of them aware,
Spilled so far down that slope there?
Ever? The stone on the hill
Listens closely to the wind.