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Count your fingers Count your toes Count your nose holes Count your blessings Count your stars (lucky or not) Count your loose change Count the cars at the crossing Count the miles to the state line Count the ticks you pulled off the dog Count your calluses Count your shells Count the points on the antlers Count the newjack's keys Count your cards; cut them again

I want to go home, Patricia whispered. I won't say I like being in prison, but I have learned a lot, and I like experiences. The terriblest part is being away from your families.—Juanita I miss my screenporch. I know every word to every song on Purple Rain.—Willie I'm never leaving here.—Grasshopper, in front of the woodshop, posing beside a coffin he built This is a kicks' camp. Nothing positive come out of here except the praying. Never been around this many women in my life. Never picked up cursing before.—down for manslaughter, forty years I've got three. One's seven. One, four. One, one. I'm twenty-three. The way I found out is, I was in an accident with my brother. He was looking at some boys playing ball. We had a head-on. At the hospital, the doctor says, Miss, why didn't you tell us you were pregnant. I'm pregnant? I wasn't afraid of my mama. I was afraid of my daddy. I was supposed to be a virgin. He took it real good though. The last time you was here I had a headful of bees. See what I did was, I accidentally killed my brother. He spoke without inflection. Asked how many brothers and sisters did he have— On my mother's side, two brothers, well now, one brother, and two sisters. On my father's side, fifteen sisters. When I handed Franklin his prints, his face broke. Damn, he said to no one,I done got old. I kept a dog. When you walk through Capricorn, keep your arms down and close to your body. That's my sign. No, she can't have no mattress. No, she can't have no spoon. See if she throwed her food yet. No, she can't have no more. I am only about thirty-four minutes from home. That's hard. —George, field line seated on a bag of peas on a flatbed My auntie works here, and two of my cousins. If I get in trouble, get a write-up, my mama knows before supper.—George My name is Patricia, but my real name is Zabonia, she spoke softly. Some have their baby and are brought back on the bus the next day and act like it doesn't bother them a bit. Some cry all the way. And for days.—guard That's hard. I don't go there. My mama was fifteen when she had me. That's common. in the country. Some can learn, and will be okay. Some could stay in the class forever and not learn. S── when she was a little girl was struck in the head with a machete, and I don't think she'll learn much more... She is so sweet. You wouldn't believe she had did all the things they say she did. Don't ask. My mug shot totally turned me against being photographed. I miss the moon. I miss silverware, with a knife, and maybe even something to cut with it. I miss a bathtub. And a toilet. With a lid. And a handle. And a door. When Grasshopper came to Big Gola his wife was pregnant. He saw the baby once. Next when he was twenty. Now he's inside. In Texas. Second time. But he's short now. He'll get out soon. That's hard. I don't go there. I miss driving. We're both here because of love.—Zabonia of herself and her best friend I am highly hypnotizable. I would wash that man's feet and drink the water.

Miracle fruit changes the tongue. One bite, and for hours all you eat is sweet. Placed alone on a saucer, it quivers like it's cold from the ceramic, even in this Florida heat. Small as a coffee bean, red as jam— I can't believe. The man who sold it to my father on Interstate 542 had one tooth, one sandal, and called me "Duttah, Duttah." I wanted to ask what is that, but the red buds teased me into our car and away from his fruit stand. One bite. And if you eat it whole, it softens and swells your teeth like a mouthful of mallow. So how long before you lose a sandal and still walk? How long before you lose the sweetness?

Music lives inside my legs. It’s coming out when I talk. I’m going to send my valentines to people you don’t even know. Oatmeal cookies make my throat gallop. Grown-ups keep their feet on the ground when they swing. I hate that. Look at those 2 o’s with a smash in the middle— that spells good-bye. Don’t ever say “purpose” again, let’s throw the word out. Don’t talk big to me. I’m carrying my box of faces. If I want to change faces I will. Yesterday faded but tomorrow’s in boldface . When I grow up my old names will live in the house where we live now. I’ll come and visit them. Only one of my eyes is tired. The other eye and my body aren’t. Is it true all metal was liquid first? Does that mean if we bought our car earlier they could have served it in a cup? There’s a stopper in my arm that’s not going to let me grow any bigger. I’ll be like this always, small. And I will be deep water too. Wait. Just wait. How deep is the river? Would it cover the tallest man with his hands in the air? Your head is a souvenir. When you were in New York I could see you in real life walking in my mind. I’ll invite a bee to live in your shoe. What if you found your shoe full of honey? What if the clock said 6:92 instead of 6:30? Would you be scared? My tongue is the car wash for the spoon. Can noodles swim? My toes are dictionaries. Do you need any words? From now on I’ll only drink white milk on January 26. What does minus mean? I never want to minus you. Just think—no one has ever seen inside this peanut before! It is hard being a person. I do and don’t love you— isn't that happiness?

A day will come I’ll watch you reading this. I’ll look up from these words I’m writing now— this line I’m standing on, I’ll be right here, alive again. I’ll breathe on you this breath. Touch this word now, that one. Warm, isn’t it? You are the person come to clean my room; you are whichever of my three children opens the drawer here where this poem will go in a few minutes when I’ve had my say. These are the words from immortality. No one stands between us now except Death: I enter it entirely writing this. I have to tell you I am not alone. Watching you read, Eternity’s with me. We like to watch you read. Read us again.

We used to have a single cow, We called her Mrs. Rupple. But she got struck by a lightning bolt, And now we have a couple. She's walking sort of funny now, Oh pity her poor calf. Old Mrs. Rupple gives no milk, She gives us half-and-half.

Love Song for the Newly Divorced One day, you will awake from your covering and that heart of yours will be totally mended, and there will be no more burning within. The owl, calling in the setting of the sun and the deer path, all erased. And there will be no more need for love or lovers or fears of losing lovers and there will be no more burning timbers with which to light a new fire, and there will be no more husbands or people related to husbands, and there will be no more tears or reason to shed your tears. You will be as mended as the bridge the working crew has just reopened. The thick air will be vanquished with the tide and the river that was corrupted by lies will be cleansed and totally free. And the rooster will call in the setting sun and the sun will beckon homeward, hiding behind your one tree that was not felled.

One day after another— Perfect. They all fit.

Awake in the desert to the sound of calling. Must be the mountain, I thought. The violent border, I assumed, though the boundary line between the living and the dead was erased years ago. Awake in the sand, I feared, old shoes decorated with razor wire, a heaven of light on the peaks. Must be time to get up, I assumed. Parked outside, Border Patrol vehicles, I had to choose. Awake to follow immigration shadows vanishing inside American walls, river drownings counted as they cross, Maria Salinas' body dragged out, her mud costume pasted with plastic bottles and crushed beer cans, black water flowing to bless her in her sleep. Must be the roar of illegal death, I decided, a way out of the current, though satellite maps never show the brown veins of the concrete channel. Awake in the arroyo of a mushroom cloud, I choke, 1945 explosion in the sand, eternal radioactive wind, the end of one war mutating the border into another that also requires fatal skills of young men because few dream the atomic bomb gave birth in the Jornado, historic trail behind the mountain realigned, then cut off from El Paso, the town surrounded with barbed wire, the new century kissing car bombs, drug cartels, massacres across the river, hundreds shot in ambushes and neighborhood soccer games that always score. Wake up, I thought, look south to the last cathedral in Juarez before its exploding bricks hurtle this way. Make the sign of the cross, open your eyes to one town, two cities, five centuries of praying in the beautiful dust.

For once you have tasted flight you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skywards, for there you have been and there you will long to return. — Leonardo da Vinci An hourglass constricted, the whore inside of me who is watching the clock, monitoring the time, this wasted time to get off, get going, lunar cycle gauge of tide and meridian. How I can hear the sand slip downward in my body clock? I need to be here, could be there, and not long ago the only place you wanted me to be was by your side ... maybe? I am a pencil that cannot sharpen, ink that slides off paper, outside of our time, I am lost, a one ended boomerang.