Ways to use safety pins

Heavy clouds, bulging with angry greens and grays of old bruises, sag toward the field, toward the pole where relics of loss climb like ivy: hearts, flowers, bows, wreaths, crosses.

A thin fabric picture of la virgen de Guadalupe - tacked on the pole - is punctured by two safety pins, one holding a small ribbon-wrapped wooden cross.  The other one hangs empty, having lost its relic, its purpose - or else waiting for it.

Down on the ground, a safety pin holds a fabric bouquet of faded bandanas to the top of a cross; a two-pin chain holds a gray bandana to a different cross, the tails of the fabric wind-whipped, tangled in weeds.

Farm Road 168

Lamb County, Texas