the walker system
by Sydney Mayes
—Denver, Colorado 1906
and on that day george andrew found gold at clear creek and all my people got rich. if you skin a dog, a good breed, color of dampwood or jukebox love—a shepherd or a coonhound—you can make a decent pomade from the silvery liquid between liver and rib. in my bag o’ bones: arthritis in one hip, a pan and pick bedazzled with my first husband’s spine, a great dane’s jawbone, my daughter’s molar kissed not knocked from her mouth like the history books say, and for good luck a varnished pig’s foot on a thick gold chain. out in the sticks, tender headed the two toothed child digging pyrite out from river scored fingertips, dry the air—the earth flawless and colored the back of my hand. out here in coyote country, i go long nights licking snuff with nostril’s flared tongue, i emboss my money with the moniker madam, i wave in the pebble webbed hair of miner’s wives argan oil and sweet jelly, change out of my good shoes to preach the gospel of a good shampoo and supplication. i say to the damp faced gals, sagged from a first or fourth child—i say come. here. hear a bit of pre-employment wisdom: to skin a dog bitter yourself with men and figs. to make a good life mix only petroleum and sulfates into inherited ceramic. to keep a sack of gold swinging from your tit follow the white man who followed the black folks who followed the waxwing who follows only that which sustains and gleams.