Texas Quarters

The house where Henry was born
sits lonely in fields of corn
and empty during winter months.

Henry played in arroyo floodwaters,
floating down so far
and then climbing out,

usually just beyond El Tonto’s house.
El Tonto was a white sharecropper,
don’t know why we called him that.

I guess I’ll have to ask my dad
next time he comes to town
which is so rare

because he loves the desert around Indio.
The heat, the cold,
don’t ask Henry which.

The mountains rise like twenty dollars
and you come back with ten,
that’s two fives or ten ones.

Henry doesn’t like to be nickeled and dimed,
but the Texas quarters in his pocket
can’t be spent.