Tiny, splintered-wood school.
So how come it seems like a ton
of huge, scary faces?
The old-fashioned building
is plopped in a rocky patch
of flowers that smell like wildness.
Right away, a loud girl shouts
that she saw me at Cowboy Church.
Good dog, she yells, and even though
I know she must mean Gabe,
I feel strangely praised.
Mom knew what she was doing
when she trained me to obey.
So I tell myself to concentrate
on this new-school reality.
My future. My torment.
Which boy will be the first
to trip me? Which girls
can’t wait to laugh?
I avoid eye contact.
If there are bullies here,
they’ll take a bold gaze
as a challenge.
I’ve been through it so many times
that I have a reputation for battles,
even though fighting
is the last thing
I’ve ever
wanted
to do.
The teacher is old and friendly.
The students are young and curious.
I don’t even try to learn names.
Why bother? As soon as Mom gets out
of prison, I’ll have to move back
to my pit-bull life, the place
where I’ve always felt
muzzled
and caged.
By the end of that first long day,
all the kids know that I live
with my uncle, who has a search-
and-rescue dog. The loud girl
doesn’t keep secrets.
She claims she’s a reporter
for the school paper.
She wants me to join her staff,
get a press pass, help her write
stories about four-footed
trail angels.
I don’t know what she means.
Are trail angels like snow angels?
Do people lie down and wave
their arms and legs
in mud or dust?
That night, when Tío asks me
about my first day of school, I don’t
say much, so he takes me outdoors
in the darkness
to stargaze.
Without any traffic or streetlights,
the forest seems ancient.
I feel like a time traveler
in a distant land
where I don’t know
the language
of star shapes.
Constellations.
Pictures in the sky.
Myths. Stories. Directions.
A way to find north or south
by following a path
made of light years.
Soon, the night-gazing spell is broken.
In bed, beside Gabe, ferocious dreams
grab me and shake me, biting, piercing,
spilling blood. By morning,
I feel wounded
instead of restful.
Gabe nuzzles my face, but I can’t tell
if he’s really trying to comfort me,
or does he just wish he could somehow
understand humans?
The next school day is oddly awkward
and friendly at the same time.
The loud girl is nosy, asking questions,
demanding answers: Who am I, where
do I come from? Am I Latino? Am I legal?
Do I like to write?
Essays? Stories? Poems?
I fall quiet. I plan to keep the answers
to myself. I haven’t had to fight
at this school. My only battle
is against
my own past.
So far, there are no gangster bullies
with knives or guns. Just the nosy girl’s
bossy voice. Her name is Gracie,
and she knows everyone.
She talks to other kids about me,
and she chatters to me about them.
Pretty soon, I’ll probably end up
with all their names stuck in my mind,
even though I don’t want to remember
anything that I’ll soon have to try
to forget.
The dizzy mountain bus ride
back to Tío’s cabin feels endless.
Three more days until the weekend.
All I have to do is avoid Gracie
and nosiness
and friendliness
and math.
Nightmares come and go.
Should I tell Tío? Would he know
how to stop them? Would he care?
What if he just lets me stay here
because he has to? Is there a law
that says great-uncles have to help
their relatives’ kids?
By the time Saturday arrives,
sun and warmth have melted
most of the snow. Tío invites me
to climb into the truck
and go exploring with Gabe.
We glide up to high slopes,
to a snow-patched campground
where ragged hikers lounge,
leaning on grubby backpacks.
There’s a trading post, with corrals
for pack animals—horses, mules,
and even a few long-necked llamas,
strange, woolly creatures
that make the day seem
like a daydreamed
adventure.
Suddenly, my other life—
my pit-bull life—starts to feel
unreal.
Catching Gabe’s excitement,
I push uneasy thoughts of the past
as far away as I can. This is real.
The llamas, the wildness, the peaks.
All I want is a chance to pay attention.
Giant burgers sizzling on a campfire.
Hikers chatting in foreign languages.
The camp is a rest stop for trekkers
from all over the world: Iceland,
Australia, France, Japan.
Tío explains that people who walk
all the way from Mexico to Canada
on the Pacific Crest Trail
are called thru-hikers. The trail
is 2,650 miles long and passes through
unimaginably rugged
wilderness.
In some parts, there’s no water.
In others, no warmth.
Hikers talk to me in broken English
about all the mountains they’ve seen,
the Alps, the Andes, the Himalayas.
I listen in wonder, trying to imagine
the size of the world.
No wonder I feel
so small.
Wild words are added
to my vocabulary when Tío gives me
my first wilderness tour.
Trail angels—the phrase Gracie used—
turn out to be dedicated professionals
like Tío, who works for free on weekends
and evenings, as a volunteer,
along with other people
whose jobs have nothing to do
with the wilderness. They just
volunteer because they love to help
by stocking food and water in caches—
bear-proof cans placed on remote paths,
just in case a weary thru-hiker
runs low on supplies, and suffers
from hunger or thirst.
Help from a stranger is called trail magic.
Food. Water. Rescue.
There are trail names, too, brave names
chosen by hikers. Explorer, Sky Walker,
Wolf Man. All the thru-hikers I meet
have trail names that sound
adventurous.
My wilderness tour
is both scary and exciting.
Sheer cliffs, tumbled boulders,
the singing
sighing
wind.
Gazing around, I imagine
how lonely it would feel
to stray from the trail
and get lost way out here,
just waiting for Tío
and a search dog
like Gabe.…
No wonder the hikers
call my uncle’s friendly dog
a four-footed trail angel.
That night, next to Gabe,
I listen to his slow breath,
with its peaceful rhythm
like soothing music.
No nightmares.
Just sleep.
In the morning, when Gabe stares
into my eyes, I feel like I can see
his dog thoughts, his memories.…
Before he was adopted by Tío,
he was a stray, lost and lonely,
but now he finds lost people,
saving their lives.
Some things in life actually do
make sense.
So why can’t I understand Mom?
The pit-bull fights were like
horror movies.
I didn’t know how to make
the pain stop.
Scary men. Scary dogs. I was the one
who had to patch wounds
and touch scars.
I was also in charge of the money,
the numbers, the bets.
That’s why I still think of math
as a battle.
Now, when Gabe grins
and wags his tail, I feel like he’s
inviting me to leave the past far behind
and play dog games—tag, tug-of-war,
victory dance!
Then it’s time for Cowboy Church,
a swirl of people, horses, dogs,
all howling through songs
and prayers.
Loud Gracie trots up to me
on a spotted mare. She smiles
and waves from the height
of her perch on the horse.
By now I know that her parents
are away for a year, studying
elephants in India. So she lives
with her grandma, a retired
wildlife biologist she calls B.B.
because B.B. studies black bears
and is beautifully brave.
In a shy, quiet way
that catches me by surprise,
Gracie asks if I’ve checked out
the school’s online newspaper.
I haven’t, and I don’t plan to.
I don’t want to hear Gracie’s
gossip.
But later, back at the cabin,
curiosity grips me.
I borrow Tío’s laptop.
There it is: My name
in a story about city kids
who have to adjust to small
mountain schools.
Gracie’s casually written words
make it sound so easy, but that’s
because she doesn’t know
that in a couple
of hours
I’ll be heading
downhill
down
down
down
to the flatlands
to the visiting room
to the loneliness
of Valley State
Prison for Women.
6
GABE THE DOG
ROUNDNESS
Togetherness in the truck, on the way back from a flat place with high fences and sadness. Tony is quiet. Is he dreaming again? Is he wishing? Why does he act so lost in aloneness? I’m here. Right here. Does the boy know how much I love to study him? I watch his eyes, listen to his voice, smell his shoes, follow his hands with my nose. I need to understand this boy-silence!
Leo is the first to speak. He notices how I stare at the boy, and he calls me a professor of human behavior. He says I could teach other dogs. This gets Tony’s attention. Teach me, the boy thinks, leaning close to press my ear with his nose as he tries to sniff my dog thoughts. Teach me, Tony begs with his silent-sad scent. Show me how to understand a prisoner-Mom who refuses to come into the visiting room, even though she knows her own son is waiting there with an eager social worker, waiting, waiting, waiting.…
Teach me, Tony’s scent pleads, but I can’t. There’s a human strangeness, a mystery that I don’t know how to inhale.
At twilight, on the way back uphill, we stop at a little park. The grass is dry and weedy, but everything smells delicious, like a name that rhymes with good or food.
Leo tosses a ball for me to chase! I show Tony how to smell, taste, hear, see, and touch the ball’s rhyming, rolling, racing roundness. Chasing a ball right beside me, how can Tony still feel that human aloneness? He doesn’t! He understands this togetherness chase-game. He quickly learns to share my hunger for roundness!
Spherical objects dazzle me. Tennis balls, oranges, apples, even my water bowl—any roundness will do. Roll, bounce, squeak!
If I could chase the moon across the sky, I would,
but every time I try, it flies too far,
so I point my nose
and sing.
Watch out, moon!
7
TONY THE BOY
INVISIBLE CLUES
The visiting room at the prison
looked like a cafeteria, but to reach it
I had to pass through metal detectors
and a massive
scary
sliding
snap-shut
gate.
Mom left me waiting there
with Leo and the social worker.
Waiting, waiting, waiting.
Like waiting in a nightmare.
So I looked around for something
good to remember. Anything
good. Just a glimpse.
All I saw was women
in blue uniforms, mostly young,
some with tattoos on their arms
and faces, playing board games
with quiet little kids
and sad-looking grandmas.
It looked almost normal,
except for the silence
of the children.
So I had to peer farther
for something worthy of memory.
I gazed out a window and found
a view of a green lawn.
Clusters of women in blue
walked in big circles,
while others kneeled
or stood
with open mouths,
singing.
A few waved sticks of incense.
Others had scarves on their heads.
The social worker pointed out
different groups—Catholics, Hindus,
she said, is open to all.
I wondered what crimes
the women had committed
and how long it had taken
before they started wanting
to sing.
Mom never showed up,
so I asked to leave, and now,
on the way back uphill, after
the park, after a ball-chasing,
moon-howling, hilarious
moment of relief with Gabe,
I start to hope there might be
enough funny memories
to balance
the sad
mad
abandoned
ones.
The note Mom sent
to the social worker said
she wanted to watch a movie
in the recreation room.
She even named the actor she
couldn’t stand to miss.
I like movies too, but I’d rather
have a family.
The socia
l worker tried to be
cheerful, but Tío was realistic.
He told me he was furious.
He said Mom must be ashamed
to let me see her in prison.
He also said the real shame
was her worrying about her image
instead of my feelings.
Now, halfway up the mountain,
his phone rings, so he pulls over
and listens, nodding, agreeing
to show up right away.…
Pretty soon we’re headed
to a search in the foothills,
a real-live mystery search
for a missing girl only three
tiny years old—she’s
the daughter of migrant
farm workers, and she
wandered away from
an apple orchard,
and now
it’s nighttime,
and she’s still lost.
Her little dog is gone too.
Maybe they went exploring
together.
If Tío and Gabe can’t
find her …
Well, I don’t even want
to think about it.
So we drive to a farm
where volunteers gather
around a sheriff, listening
to instructions.
Tío tells me to stay close,
then introduces me to a woman
around his age. She has a nice smile,
and I can tell that my uncle
really likes her.
But she turns out to be
loud Gracie’s grandma,
the bear-behavior specialist
who has a reputation
for courage.
Gracie is right beside her, just as jumpy
and exuberant as Gabe. I don’t want to stay
at the sheriff’s command-post table,
even though Gracie calls it base camp,
as if we’re getting ready to climb
the world’s tallest mountain.
I need to get away.
I want to be out there, searching
with Tío and his hero-dog, moving
through the whispery spring leaves,
where instead of ripe red fruit
on the trees there are just
moon white
apple flowers
glowing.
With a silvery bell on his collar
and Halloween light sticks
fitted into tabs on his bright
orange vest, Gabe sounds
like Christmas and looks
like a shooting star
as he streaks
through the darkness
of night
making light
seem like something alive
and growing.…
There are horsemen, too,
and horsewomen, a mounted posse
like the ones in old cowboy movies,
and modern people driving ATVs,
all-terrain vehicles that resemble
slow golf carts but zip and dart
like speeding dirt bikes.
Teams of searchers head out
in every direction.