Huisache

Matthew Flores

familial           we’re weather
carried on                angled mirrors

 in brush of critique, women teach how
close the harsh brush is. since nation’s
lonely speech near erasure tonight

 is recollection building homeliness up,
highway sounds bed in dreams.
and neglect a similar reflection
                                       refraction.

             along the fields of cotton 
your sense of ghost is in the mesquite, live
oak, and huisache. your entrance to all this
is membrane to every person that’s purpose is                              

now horizon. along clouds, where names are
to recognize migration—words—at your age
are then singular birds astray on telephone wires.
and do they even signal when to leave the flock,

say—when you come across them, whenever
you’re hush, barked up, again listening.