Contributions by Rebecca Spears
Dismantling Candide
The pen bears down ahead of me while I’m stuck a moment on Candide
and the garden where webworms chew the sweet basil
the dill has gone to seed.
Mint that overgrew its green borders in July—late summer’s steel has cut
it down. Yellow fields…
On the Española Road
we covered the tenantless distance
in your red Ford truck. Mile creased
into mile. Juniper and piñon
crumpled into a breach here and there
in the mountains’ brown and pink—
green sill of Taos Valley long gone.
Along the Rio Chama, silvery stands
of…