I could not find enough of him
to satiate lust and sure, every
time I glanced across the table
there were his hungry eyes.
Dios, le cuide.
If my body song ran
harmony to the side show
of words we traded,
if yours wove itself
in complement, what
meteors we would be.
Dios, nos cuide.
My sweet hungers crave
beyond, lasting with other men
whose love squares
spare moments.
an original nebraskan
on west texas desert highway
in a white golf
convertible, holding a camel
between brown fingers
is saying to me
so the cacti are edible
using his brown hands like brushes
air our movie screen.
my spine like water, lights
there on the hills flickering
with my approval. you
can pay me back for texas
with kisses, he suggests
which i start right away
paying him back for giving me
sky and a day of laughter.
i want
he says pausing for effect
two brown fingers and a camel pointing
to be married in Marrakesh.
i had to admit i’d never been there.
.
Spinning fast down a narrow
track that clings to the
tenuous layer of thin existence
balanced finely
between the infinity of
hot blue sky and the
vast plain of slippery
golden sand dissolving under the
burden of a relentless
sun,
two kilometers east of
The Tree
(the only
Tree):
two foxes.
.
They heard
us coming.
As we rose over the shimmering
curvature of horizon
they ran
ripping
twin dust clouds off the
broad surface
of the planet, cutting
thin trails through the
interminable heat to
disappear
over the slow
curvature of the earth’s edge
south
.
toward
nothing.
.
Just sand.
Against the caution of wisdom
I wish you at my door,
hungry for my hand
resting against your cheek,
whiskers rough as your confusion,
maybe no more.
I am hungry for your hand,
calloused by time, always
tougher than I could be.
I am hungry
for the smallest abandon
of our sweet ethic
that tries so hard to remain
married.
(For TR, BB, & L)
.
Today I screamed
for fear
it has been so long since
I have heard a cricket
and I have never been given
flowers on Valentine’s Day.
My birthdays pass.
We used to be four
living hard on long tethers,
catastrophically heaving in
expanding universes,
mouthing off and
fucking with boys’ brains and
loving their hearts
and eating ourselves alive.
We are now sparse
and exactly four directions,
only air between.
.
Today I screamed for fear
it has been so long since
I have watched an evening age
in silence and I have never
ridden a motorcycle without a helmet.
I have never
received a love letter from a man I love.
We used to carry three guitars
and Black Velvet bottles, wore
fedoras, Vasque boots
and smoked like gypsies
tripping on each others’ feet
and ubiquitous hilarity,
cursing in three languages
just to watch the moon rise.
The boys came and were afraid.
We used to heave the earth,
quake tremors pulsing through confinement.
Now we seep and trickle.
Now we test waters with a heel
holding a man’s hand,
suspicious that we need him.
We whisper through the
telephone receivers
to each other.
.
Today I screamed
for fear
it has been so long since
I have led a man’s hand
and I have never seen the monarchs
migration route.
My birthdays pass.
We four cudgeled chastity,
fervently exuberant still
we were only miserable
abundance trapped,
believing in the control of
climate by travel.
We thought love was effortless.
Now we are dense as
salt water
and deeper than oceans
of earth.
Now we will each seek the sound of crickets
and admit our fears,
gratefully letting them hold
our hands.
.
We are sparse
and exactly four directions,
only evening air between.
I find myself to be
dreadfully content.
Red horses dance on
my wall.
I painted them
last night because it was
your birthday and
I missed you.
you passed by the willows
where they bend brushing water.
that is where i remember you,
your brown shoulders moving
smoothly as deer dipping
under young branches to meet me.
when you rode at dawn did you see me
in the willow shadows watching your body
become the galloping horse’s body
moving across grass like a fast cloud?
now when wind shifts against hissing grasses
i hear your flute song calling down dusk,
healing my slashed arms still wanting to bleed
this life back into earth to follow you
on a trail to the stars.
do you ever pause to watch a fast cloud
chase the herd you left below?
do you see a woman standing still by the willows
watching spaces between branches,
waiting for you?
I like Indian country
looking like my studio
where only the right things matter,
easier than feeling
an equivalent desperation–
shudders through alcohol and
through my terrible hands.
Life is a mess. It just is.
I like the way my breathing grows
deep and low
when a horse presses a forehead
hard into my shoulder
as I turn away.
The weight of that warmth.
Because they are always bigger
than I am
and stronger.
The way they are so much stronger.
I am drawn to gutters and
wrecking balls, explosives
powdering history.
I walk right into his arms,
time after time.
That love as an interior force
can be so elastic …
A bad bone doesn’t stalk
when the sun is walking straight on a clear sky
through grandmothers and sisters.
He beats her when
the moon is pulling him up.
In small ways he beats her
when graves are sucking him down,
winds are shoving him around.
He beats her when rains
stomp around, vibrating dirt,
shaking tangles out of tall grass.
Still she stays.
Maybe she knows that
he is between everything substantial.
She knows how old the day can be and
how young he is between hunts.
She can see the stars between bad bones
even when night skies cloud black,
dense as ironwood branches
washed down the arroyo in spring
because she loves him.
orphan poems 