When I took
what came to me
I took
Idaho pool halls with
old men coughing phlegm
and young men staring bullets
at serapes, bare feet,
at bracelets,
at our beer crossing the wood bar.
Neon flashed our long hair
into snakes of flying highways.
When I took
what came to me
I took Quebec-quoi love songs in RV’s
rocking under original tunes
and the brown eyed boy
thinking out loud in accented English
into my long hair,
limp from acrobatic highways.
When I took what came to me
I took
bottle flies crawling corners
of bloodshot eyes beside ditches.
I took
thick fog holding my arms in gloom
under sequoia canopies.
I took fish
offered from withered hands
under California cardboard.
When I took
what came to me
I took
crowds behind glass under stars,
sweet smoke long in my lungs
and a pull off Glen Fiddich,
overlooking unpaved highways
scratching and scraping their way.
I took
red earth against my damp cheek
smelling of safety when I woke at dawn
beside graveyards prickling
the air with white stones.
When I took what came to me, I took
what came,
satiated by novas of my own
flirtation, inhaling with abandon
the exhaust
of winding highways,
clouds in my
long hair.
orphan poems 