El Valle, 1991

AURELIA KESSLER lives in Alaska, where she works at her local public library. Her work has appeared in a variety of publications, including Tidal Echoes, Wildheart Magazine, Cirque, Crab Fat Magazine, and Glass: A Journal of Poetry.

 north of Santa Fe, there is an adobe house. It is clay, sand, and straw mixed with the sweat of my greatgrandparents, Jacobo and Eloisa. They dug the clay soil and mixed it in a wheelbarrow, taking turns with a shovel, stirring the clay and straw with water from the galvanized metal tub on the ground beside their feet. The water had come from the acequia that trickled through their land. The water in the acequia