I took the dog for a walk today, down a palm lined street, the water lapping at the shore. A family of ducks waddled across the intersection in front of us, headed toward the brackish water, where the river estuary met the gulf, for their daily swim. Their heads were red and white. Blotchy. Bumpy. Their eyes were encircled with thick, black, clown-like liner. Bits of white were flung haphazardly along the sides of the males, as if they’d strayed under the ladder of a sloppy painter. They were the biggest ducks I think I’ve ever seen. They reminded me of the turkey buzzards back on the ranch out west, where I grew up.
I’d watch them arc across the sky in slow, lazy circles, squinting against the hot New Mexican sun, the smell of dry, brittle grass in my nose, the sound of buzzing insects on the hunt for a cactus blossom in my ears. I grew up herding cattle with my family. We’d head to the back pasture, and everyone had their jobs, bringing the beasts in. I remember following my grandmother. She couldn’t have been more than five feet tall, but she was a giant. She knew each animal by name, and would sing as we pushed the cattle on the narrow trails they’d cut into the hillsides.
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