He leans his back against the wheeled workshop
regarding figures rendered white and stiff
on morning rock. He's old, a sideshow prop
beneath balloons above the petroglyph.

Within the wagon now, the carver sings.
The puppet boy declined the gift three times
to keep his rectitude, long life, the rings
of fine Genoan ash providing rhymes

to make a girl in Santa Fe ask why
he wouldn’t drink with her, his lipless mouth
half-cocked, his splintered arms, his legs awry,
his stumble to the door, the long walk south

to this gitano camp, this cactus sea,
the hovering hearts, the blue uncertainty.