I want to ask, "Where are your teeth?"
 although I know, already know,
having met you many times,
your hip-borne child
with chicken-bone breast and eyes that tear 
as strangers stare
at mountain folk.

You drink in our wares, our artsy beads,
city pretties, priced and set
a world apart from well-drawn water,
old truck that drips as much and more
as blonde-nosed, stair-stepped, scruff-shoed kids, 
whining quarters for a "pop."

Your man asks, "Whar you all from?" 
yet not believing me as I speak.
"Don't sound Kentucky t' me."
 Rockies man, though versed in tongues, 
not hearing, no longer hearing,
far below my city patterns 
the nasal vowels that thread our bones 
through mountain chains across the land.