A Trail of Bodies

I've always wondered if she survived.
It was dark. Thirty miles from town.
Maybe a rancher or two lived out there.

My brother and I had brought our rifles
to the mountains, hiking, half-heartedly
shooting at a coyote or antelope, chasing

the sounds of elk sharpening their antlers
against trees, never seeing one. We got
to the paved road not long after sunset.

There was no moon. The old Jeep's over-
sized tires thumped the pavement, caused
the cab to vibrate. The headlights poked

into the blackness, discovering the now
visible aerial world outside. From force
of impact, nylon insects sounded like two

pound creatures splattering the windshield.
Carroll and I sunk into the well-worn bucket
seats, exhausted, lulled by the drone of tires.

I saw her dark, startled eyes, big ears, black
nose, both of us moving so fast, the thud
on my side instantaneous with her image,

then the sound of the road and nothing else.
We stopped within fifty feet or so, examined
the damage: a broken mirror and the side

glass cracked. Arms dangling at our sides, we
stared into the scrub. A tumbleweed rolled
slowly past. The doe dazed, looking for her

family, hopefully, or dying in the juniper bushes.
Still, to this day, her bones crying in the wind,
lost in time, everyone I've ever left behind.

this is the best I could do but I'm happy

age has no substance
just a lengthening of pain
that was always there
waiting for the salt of experience

to send the dog scooting
across the floor
one dangling bulb in an attic
never changed

burning brightly the few times
a year it's needed
the laugh the same
to the same old jokes

the slow descent into meaningful
living without the life
of ten thousand new things
to make it worthwhile

in an open field

not knowing that the soil
still clings to them
that their bones
yearn to be found
before they've turned to dust
that the wind sings
through them
the endless song
of their former lives
that worms weave a space
for souls
the dead are convinced
will come to them
on a grey winter day
as sparrows
foraging in snowless patches
of last year's stubble

A Mist Covers The Earth
 
Waiting in the rain,
rivulets run down my face.
Steady all day.

The ground soft underfoot.
The earth turning green
right before my eyes.

I lick up the water,
almost a fish again.
New again.

Every puddle
a step into childhood,
a break from the rules.

I'm drunk with the fear
of thunder and lightning.
The rain is its own world.

Maybe Next Year

We stuck to each other
like mollusks to a rock
in high tide. Remember?
I don't think I could
get close again.
I haven't been able
to write that letter.
The wind blows here
year round.

The wheel is a round way home

like a ferris wheel.
I'm looking from the top
then the bottom.
From the top I see
the horizon
and the whole city.
Below me
people swinging,
dangling their feet,
screaming with fear
and joy.

It stops
when the carney
pulls the lever
and one-by-one
the gondolas
empty cargoes
of couples,
children, parents,
and the dizzy.

I get to stay on top
for a long time.
I feel like the hands
of a clock stopping
while the roar
of the fair goers below
continues madly on
without me.

A Myth To Be Told Only In Daylight

I

There was a lone night who called in a weary voice,
calling to all the other nights, from before and to come.
But they wouldn't listen in their darkness.
They whispered among themselves about the day
that never came. And even the stars believed, because
they wanted to, because to believe otherwise meant
their own demise. "But where did we come from?" asked
the nights among themselves. The stars wondered, too.

II

The baby came out of the night into the day.
And the woman pulled herself from the drowning
lake, sat on a naked boulder turning dark
from her wetness.The boulder moved, though
that's not possible; it wanted to see, though
it can't see, the darkness beneath it for thousands
of years, wearing away, particle by particle,
so the day would come when the woman sat on it.

Minor Surgery

Dark star
in the middle
of my forehead.

I cut it out
with a #11
disposable scalpel.

It will heal.
It does.

Several months later
it returns,
no longer a star.

A blob now.
A black blob.

I regret
incising it.

A star
portends greatness.
I was chosen
by fate.

But a blob?
Nondescript.
Roundish.
Who doesn't have one?

For vanity
I sacrificed the mark
of my mystery
for a blob.

I Thought He Was Either A Devil Or A Saint from North Carolina

I met him on the night shift at the University of Iowa Hospitals.
We were housekeepers. I was a member of the reputed God Squad.
That's what the housekeepers called us, our little group of born-
agains, praying in the cafeteria, witnessing in the halls. I could never

witness to David. He was always smiling as if he knew something
I didn't. It was a mystery as to his sexual preference. The women
housekeepers were infatuated by his Southern charm. Thanksgiving
he asked co-workers to close their eyes, then put a cold, jumbo

turkey dog in their hands, greeting them with, "Happy Franksgiving."
He was able to pull off that kind of thing. The women giggled,
looked away embarrassed, but always searched his blue eyes again.
I found out he was a writer, came to Iowa to go to the Writer's

Workshop. He decided it wasn't for him and continued to party
and write his novel. I was regularly passing by his cleaning area
on the 2nd floor, not to witness, but to find myself, though I
didn't know it then. He told me his novel was about particle

physics, God, sex, and drugs. It wasn't long before he converted
me. He moved in when my quiet roommate couldn't deal with my
new persona any longer. David would drink a couple of six packs,
smoke a joint, while stroking the Selectra keys. I became an artist,

painted murals on the walls, pissed on the front porch in an old toilet
turned flower pot, stuck butcher knives in mirrors. In one year of living
together, we dropped sixty hits of blotter, ran naked from the cops,
burned our clothes to make torches wading the Iowa River at midnight,

slept with several women, together and separate, drove to Arizona
and back on a whim, went on a safari in our apartment hunting roaches
with Bic lighters, shit in the middle of our living room floor, walked
across the frozen Iowa River, drank more alcohol than six good

writers combined. We wrote spontaneous poetry together, me a line,
then him a line. The last time I saw David he pissed on my feet
smiling that inimitable smile. I didn't piss back. He was no longer devil
or saint; he was just David, a friend along the way to enlightenment.

Holding Up My Pants

I hold the light
between my thumb
and index finger
like holding up
my pants
that day in the woods.
You had a wildflower
between your teeth,
kept looking up
into the trees
and smiling.

i envy venus being so close

i leave for work
no different than any other night
open the back door

and there it is
the moon lounging on its back
a waxing crescent
rocking in the quiet of darkness

like a cradle
and I'm in it
a baby again
the whole sky
a womb

i drive slow
watching it
to the side of me
in front
to the back
all the way to the hospital

never caring if i get there
ready to do
whatever is needed
to see the moon like that
one more time

The Sunday Before The Week When Everything Turned Around

She waited for him at their spot, nothing special,
an old elm tree, the fourth one from the entrance.
There was a bench overlooking the lake. A crow
rifled around in the grass a few feet away, then
flew away cawing as if to tell her it's a lonely life
with meager pickings. Several geese flew over,
calling to her to follow. She put her fingers
through the gaps between the rails of the bench,
wiggled them, then squeezed until they turned
purple and yelled let go. She walked to the car,
looking behind several times, then not again.

In the Reliquary

Two faces on boulders slumber together, their stony
eyes four full moons orbiting an undiscovered planet.
What are their dreams? And where do they go without

running into each other? There are perceptible smiles
carved in the topography of their sleep. It's never-ending
and enviable, though they have no idea their existence

rests upon a larger rock that bears them upon a body
thousands of years older, orbiting another nameless
planet in a nameless universe in the middle of history.

I'm ugly

where it counts
where you can’t see

you tell me I’m beautiful
in your ignorance

pointing to my small ears
to my hair

you wish was yours
to my eyes

that look out
from a deep well

where so many empty pails
were lowered

and never made a sound

 this is the best I could do but I'm happy

age has no substance
just a lengthening of pain
that was always there
waiting for the salt of experience

to send the dog scooting
across the floor
one dangling bulb in an attic
never changed

burning brightly the few times
a year it's needed
the laugh the same
to the same old jokes

the slow descent into meaningful
living without the life
of ten thousand new things
to make it worthwhile

Heartland

In the middle
sitting on a fence surrounding
an open field
alfalfa between my teeth

the moo of my heart
the rolling hills
tucked away in my memory

a need to compromise
to say yes
yes for the suffering
of all the missing people
on milk cartons
drowning in my cereal
and forgotten

yes to the easy slide of life
nothing at the bottom
after a careful climb

yes to rivers and lakes
and ponds with docks
and no boats
fish no one can eat

yes to uncles and aunts
as plump as their cows
as dependable as the shade
of the trees in their back yards
on a hot July day

when the corn has yet to decide
whether it's a good
or bad year.

on my way

this gypsy
that can't claim
a father or a mother
they were known once
to themselves
and a few others
all that gone now
I will be remembered
a line here
a word there
the color of pants
they put on me
the part in my hair
that was never there
they have their fancies
that will live on
but no one will ever ask
and that one will never tell
about the night
that lasted for years
and the day that finally came
and I missed it
that's the way I lived  

The Sunday Before The Week When Everything Turned Around

She waited for him at their spot, nothing special,
an old elm tree, the fourth one from the entrance.
There was a bench overlooking the lake. A crow
rifled around in the grass a few feet away, then
flew away cawing as if to tell her it's a lonely life
with meager pickings. Several geese flew over,
calling to her to follow. She put her fingers
through the gaps between the rails of the bench,
wiggled them, then squeezed until they turned
purple and yelled let go. She walked to the car,
looking behind several times, then not again.

The Forecast Was For Sun No Clouds

"Do you love me?"
The water from the faucet
so hot it nearly burns him.

"Well, do you?"
Through the kitchen window
the clouds rush by like a movie
when you want to get
to the good part
or you wind back
because you couldn't hear
what they said.

"I love you," he says.
He's been scrubbing
the same dish,
drops it, shattering.
He hurriedly sweeps
the fragments
into a corner of the sink
to scoop up and throw
in the garbage,

blood drips on everything
from a cut to his hand.
He mutters, "I love you."

Whatever's Behind The Shadows

It has been raining 

all day somewhere 

but not here.

I stumble over a dry mouth

spit out 

soundless pebbles.

A lantern burns 

into morning

then days weeks and years.
Its flickering 

shadows play fingerless charades. 

I've guessed
the end before the beginning. 

A black smoke 

smells of phosphorus 

spills an endless skid mark 

across the sky.
The wind spreads it. 

A shrunken head attached
to a skeleton key 

and a bag 

of gold teeth in my pocket
are the only possessions I've robbed 

from the earth.

The Secret Place

"This is a secret between you and me,
not between my legs," she said, "I'm
just skin and bones. My organs are
missing. Do you want my money?

Why do you call me Celise? She's
dead. Ask her parents." She points
to the television, "They know me.
I'm Jesus. Give me chocolate.

Did you bring me here?" She waves 

at the TV, laughing and jumping. "I'm 

jiggling inside. Look, feel it." She grabs
his hand, puts it between her legs.

The Castaways, Miami Beach, 1960

Sun bleached hair,
drinking a Roy Rogers,
the umbrella
a cool parachute.
The hotel photographer
took a photo of us.
For five bucks
he put it in a souvenir frame.
I smiled naturally then.

My older brother looked
and dressed like a movie star,
his hair dark and wavy,
wrap-around sunglasses.
He hadn’t married Miss Florida
or opened the restaurant yet.
Tax people hadn't chained
the doors to the restaurant.
She hadn’t scrawled good-bye
with lipstick on the bedroom mirror.

He moved back after the divorce.
Our parent’s home a nightclub,
we lived in the back half.
He waited tables, supervised
the waiters and waitresses.

One night, after hours,
I heard him fucking the fat dishwasher
on one of the tables.
She was a former XXX-size stripper.
He came to bed, thought I was asleep,
sobbed for who knows how long.

A month or so later, he didn’t come home.
I fell asleep but was awakened
by the phone in my parent’s room.
I heard dad say, "Where?", get up and leave.
Mom was screaming and crying.
I couldn’t cry then.

Looking at this old photo,
I remember how he used to tease me
and make me cry.
I wish I could now,
but I’m beginning to smile
naturally again.

When I Make It Home At Night

Buzz of an electric bug killer
outside the motel room. Dead
dropping out of the air. I can
hear their freefall after the sizzle.

Tomorrow, when people check out,
the maid empties the metal cage.
A grey cloud of wings and legs
tumbles into a cardboard box.

The butter on my body hairs salty
and sweet after last nights feast.
I run along the rail of the staircase,
unseen. In the hall is a fuchsia

carpet, the last dangerous crossing
before I reach the crack I call a home.

Song Under My Breath

Horizon moon. I'm more and less
than yesterday. The old man
saw to that. Flurries in his eyes.

Winter morning, I look out window.
Someone has shaken a snow globe.
I let my heart fly with the geese.

A few white hairs in my beard. Crows
burst into flight. A last breath. Geese
overhead, he talks about the weather.

kiss

open-mouthed
or softly etching the cornices
of the body

a long goodbye
that says it would be impossible
without some ripping

entreaties like classroom love notes
open to a future
surrendering to now

one in mid air destined
to touch without self-consciousness
no names attached