A Poem by Stephen Page

The Cycle of Things On Santa Ana and Everywhere

My new capataz,
or should I say my newest,
the one who started working here two year ago
after I fired the bad guys,
has been moving things around—
or should I say acquiring things—
without my permission:
tanks of gas, tools, saddles.
I had a serious talk with him
about the concept of property.

After, as we were walking to the corral
to see the stallions and select which would be kept
and which would be sold and which would become geldings,
I asked him about his family.
He told me his son had quit school
to go to work driving tractors,
and that his daughter
had failed her senior year,
and was working as a teller in a pharmacy.

Stephen Page is from Detroit, Michigan. His is part Shawnee and part Apache. His other books include The Timbre of Sand and Still Dandelions. He graduated from Palomar College, Columbia University (with honors), and Bennington College. He has received a Jess Cloud Memorial Prize for Poetry, a Writer-in-Residence with stipend from the Montana Artists Refuge, a full Writer Fellowship from the Vermont Studio Center, an Imagination Grant from Cleveland State University, and an Arvon Foundation Ltd. Grant. His book reviews have been published regularly in the Buenos Aires Herald and on Fox Chase Review. He also writes short stories, novels, and screen plays. He has taught world literature, ESL, and film studies. He loves family, friends, spontaneous road trips, and throwing his cellphone into a large body of water. Above all he loves his wife.

A Ranch Bordering the Salty River (Finishing Line Press) by Stephen Page is available on amazon.com: https://www.amazon.com/Ranch-Bordering-Salty-River/dp/1635340