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As she turned the bend
she painted an army swarming
the limestone cliffside with ropes.
Each soldier wore a different
color (and face). They made a star pack,
a thick cluster of whites and greens,
silver armaments taking each a piece
of the moon and reflecting
it back to her from a million
different centuries.

On the horizon Mars rose
slowly, Jupiter studied bears,
Pluto waved from a leaf tip,
and a white owl slumbered
in a night tree. She swerved
to avoid a rat wearing
a feathered cap who raised his fist
to her alien plates. “I’m on the road
like you, carrying all my crap,”
he called. “I’m venturing
like you to find a woman
who lives in a cave.
Have you seen her?”

She will hear nothing
of this, now, imagining an owl’s
shadow on the river,
red mesas under bear and tiger
patterns, children
packing capguns
on the street corners,
and every clover leaf
as one leaf, outlined
as sharp as a charcoal
smile on polished
limestone against
life’s greenest puzzle.

In Mexico she purchased
an obsidian knife
from a vendor with an eye
the color of whale bone.
When she holds it
she can still see three
of his blinks in the black
chisel scallops so that
–in that blade–
she paints thirty eyes
emerging all at once
to watch her with.

She put her foot
on the brake, slowed.
She lowered the window.
Soon the rat appeared
at that space, drawing
in big drinks of air,
(somewhat tired
from scaling the door
with a rope and a grapple).
He squeaked suspiciously,
“So you’ll take me to find her.
Somewhere out there?”
and he pointed ahead
into the night.

“Yes,” she said, “For
as long as it lasts. But
what about the armies?”
The rat hoped into the passenger
seat, clicked his safety
belt securely, and said
“Not armies you see but the light
that’s waited a billion years
for the warm limestone
and the moonlight in the eyes
of a woman passing through
the hills.” “Oh,” the woman
said. “I didn’t know rats
had such thoughts.”
“We should go,”
the rat said. “I hear there
are green tigers in these parts.”

“Don’t worry,” she said.
“I have a knife for protection
and many miles yet to drive
before stopping for a bed.”
They moved on past
the limestone. In the mirror,
she saw quiet millions turn
at the cliff top to watch
her and the rat go. Pluto waved
from a leaf tip oh so barely
moved by the sound
of the wind and the deep
green sky roused, opened its eyes,
and released the milk
white owl into the night.