can i live in the land of happy endings? 
with lush green grass stretching around for miles & miles? 
where the sheep don't stick their heads 
through unrusted field fencing to nibble the grass & flowers 
from your neighbor's backyard. 
and when i split a bottle of apple juice with my sister 
it's split exactly, precisely, down to the atom, in half. 
both our cups are half full, and 
our colgate fluoride protected teeth 
gleam like mica chips cracked on a brown shale hill. 

my uncle stands at the side of the road to Gallup 
the indigo of his pants has faded to grey-with-a-blue-tint, 
& is streaked with brown greasy-dirt stains. 
my uncle who used to be an EMT. 
my uncle who set my arm in a cast 
when i fell from the imaginary circus tightrope 
on the back of the old silver Dodge pick-up. 
his hair is clumpy & shiny black with grease. 
his face is red from broken vessels under his skin, 
& he greets me with a sweet rubbery chemical, stale booze smelling "Hi". 

where's the happy ending in this? 
where is the swell of music & the sun going down fiery colors? 

my grandma cuts the sheep's throat, bright red blood gushes out, 
a red bubbling torrent caught in a banged-up aluminum washpan, 
used by generations & generations to catch blood, wash hands & reach matches. 
auntie's favorite knife, the one with the handle 
smoothed dark blonde & black stripey by years of use, 
the one with the blade ground down to crooked scratched silver 
by repeated encounters with her whetstone, 
slices cleanly through the light pink sheepskin. 
the legs are freed of skin. the hooves are cut loose. 
rope is threaded through a hole punched between the hamstring & leg bone. 
auntie, grandma, mom, cousin Pearl, me, my sister & the pulley drag the carcass up into the tree. 

the picture seems perfect, but if you wind the film back a little further, 
you will see that my uncle was killed on the Munoz overpass last week. 
he became a dark stain, driven over & over by Chevys, Fords & GMCs. 
my last uncle on my mom's side. 
my last uncle that could've help wrestle the sheep to the ground, 
and pull it into the sky. 

rose colored glasses & being named Polly Anna Junior can't hide 
the glass dumped over, and it's contents soaking into the ground. 
men with their hearts dragging & bumping on the train tracks in Gallup. 
red rusted barb wire fences corralling broken down cars & HUD houses in a row.

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