Snowfields of New Mexico
1
For Easterners, West is a contraction
  without an apostrophe
anywhere
  from 2 to 3 thousand miles
The west without a map
  it could be any place
But Western New Mexico
  near Gallup and Zuni Mountains
mean endless parched earth…
  desert flowers
cactus with uplifted arms
  and flowery eyes
waiting for the sun
Snow is some other state’s
  Spring blanket
The bare desert floor
  should show drifts of sand
not a dirty Midwest snowfall
The sun waits hot walled
  behind Albuquerque’s
eastern rising mountains
  8 a.m. clouds
2
Lizards slide erratically
  down the Interstate Highway
like cars on ice
The same road
  they held the earth
a death grip of claws
  yesterday
My car slides too
All March highway travelers
  are shocked
by the snowfields of New Mexico
Steve Heins
1
For Easterners, West is a contraction
  without an apostrophe
anywhere
  from 2 to 3 thousand miles
The west without a map
  it could be any place
But Western New Mexico
  near Gallup and Zuni Mountains
mean endless parched earth…
  desert flowers
cactus with uplifted arms
  and flowery eyes
waiting for the sun
Snow is some other state’s
  Spring blanket
The bare desert floor
  should show drifts of sand
not a dirty Midwest snowfall
The sun waits hot walled
  behind Albuquerque’s
eastern rising mountains
  8 a.m. clouds
2
Lizards slide erratically
  down the Interstate Highway
like cars on ice
The same road
  they held the earth
a death grip of claws
  yesterday
My car slides too
All March highway travelers
  are shocked
by the snowfields of New Mexico
Steve Heins