PURO NOGALITOS

by Mather Schneider

Some guy threatens to kill me
on the internet, so I shut
it down for a while.
When you criticize one person
you’ve soon got a mob
on your ass
zombies pawing you
like cowards to the pile on.
I say to my girlfriend:
Let’s go to the mountains, let’s get
away from this shit.
We drive up and park the car
and hike up a trail.
These big blue birds follow us
for a while and there are a lot
of squirrels and it is chilly
but not too chilly.
Way up on the mountain we find a place
out of the wind
and we sit down and look
out at all the layers of
mountains covered with pine and cedar and
blue spruce and just a bit of yellow
from the sumac leaves
along the creek beds
and I feel better than
I have for a long time.
I wish I could stay there forever
but even if I could
I would not.
As we stand to leave
I see where has someone carved
the name of a local street gang
“PURO NOGALITOS”
on the trunk of a
yellow pine
and put a jagged heart
around it.