Tag Archives: death

123. Caged

Behind the grey chain 

link fence, a coyote who has worn out 

the grass all over. When I stop to look 

he trots to a worn adobe shell

staring sideways,

            hating me.  

I let my hands hang, claw fingers stuck 

to the sun-hot links, let

my 

            hate 

flay a world that would catch

a coyote, weave wire around and

give him nothing but a shell

of white-washed mud

to contain his fear

            and shelter his hate.

 

The force of his eyes blew holes in the adobe.

In the dark his brothers sing wild hymns.

 

They say he was injured, that 

            this

is how they saved him,

death assumed to be less

than any life.

It can’t be true.

119. Weeks in One Room

 

he died loose in town

short of air, a son and humility,

black hair sprayed on pavement.

 

metal aids gave back his breath

but took half his stomach in trade,

some old fungus, separate

leaves on the branch

off the trunk of his only body.

a worthwhile trade.

 

does he refigure birth

on this late cusp of rebirth

counting the son in a past life?

did he speak to angels?

he says no.  he heard

every word in spanish

the nurses, tv

but they weren’t speaking it.

he doesn’t either.

colors were dense,

saturated with fever, drugs

or else something, and

 every dark hispanic woman

was achingly beautiful.

because he said 

mexico

as a short cut to 

santa fe, 

they thought his head damaged.

they held him, held to him

the head of his own in some shock

for an extra week.

 

he thought he had it straight.

he is surprised to realize

he could have been so confused

in such a small space, one room.

but he notes all the space

held in time.

110. The Diner

the car

parked during the night

holds 

one corpse.

 

startled her 

half out of her skin

in the morning half light.

the door was unlocked.

 

across the long highway

is a phone tacked up

on a power pole

catching two hundred

miles of wind 

with its sharp corners.

sometimes the phone 

works.

 

thirty-two miles north

in town

the ringing

woke a sheriff.

 

by eight he was gone,

the corpse

leaving tire tracks

of the coronor’s rig.

 

all that’s left here

is the woman’s nerves

strung taut between sage.

all that’s left here

is the end of a man’s story

rolling across three ranches

like a tumbleweed.

106. war dead

.

today i found your phone

message and one envelope

that you had sent to

me last year before 

you became just one more dead 

man that I know. 

.

you had sent a photo

that i saved and i won’t hold it 

against my heart 

.

or against you –

.

i for one know the cost of no

interior rest and 

i’d not have lasted

as long, whiskey and gun as

backboard or not.

.

well i did save it 

just not as a sacrament.

more like a scar that

can still raise a smile.

it’s there in a flat tin, now

second drawer down

.

where the accidents

are filed. Let’s assume you could

not have saved yourself

.

since no one else could

save you. Let’s assume 

you’re now comfortable,

warm

loved.

.

101. in my dreams

.

last night i picked up

the phone but you were still dead.

you keep calling me

.

though it’s hard to hear

your words this way, hard to trade

old photos of our

.

heroes, your new collage,

my aimlessly wandering  

with found objects and

.

tribal members. your

brother is angry and P 

is angry with me

.

which is easier. 

i’m fine. i’ve seen your face on

strangers in philly

.

and once in DC … you

winked at me, no less – nice touch

and every time

.

i inscribe three dots

on the bottom of a clay 

pot i smile for you 

.

now untouchable.

it’s always nice to hear from 

you. it’s just hard to

.

understand over this phone.

i’ve reserved a place for you 

in my dreams tonight.

80. my brothers

.

dawn light empties each shallow 

cough and dies sagging against memories. 

we were a quickened lick

of endurance … now we are

ash, like our brother’s

ash, whether mistake  or choice. 

once we shared guilt and hope, now

even that shadow has washed out,

gone. 

you.

and him.

.

how I will miss you.

how I will long for

our tribe, shattered now.

.

empty houses

surround me, ghost murmurs 

and morning light, so painfully

brittle in winter.

.

22. the attention of soldiers

maybe it was not the jacketed metal

that killed soldiers, not the compressed air

in a vacant pocket of explosion.

maybe those projectiles only

spring through the gauntlet of wandering attention–

the blistered foot, the scratched raw palm chafing

on the salty stock of a worn rifle.

maybe in the window of rainwater

fresh on green-drunk jungle, in the heart-stopping

din orchestra of birdsong falling 

on morning’s delicate daylight, swinging

grass flowing like wind-water

gold as a lit evening in illinois . . .

perhaps it is not precisely the trigger pulled that kills

but the moment between, that of an eyelid flickering, 

side trip to a stop frame of living 

that takes each soldier’s life, 

stolen with calcified indifference

from that blade width of inattention

between the effort of vigilance

and the infinite sensation

of a hunger for beauty.