through her window, she watched
sun shafts through the trees, a transient
tapestry on her potholed lane

a half dozen eggs sat beside her bowl
ready to be beat for the scramble; a half dozen
hours after her street was alight with noise

first the pernicious pop of the zip guns
then the cops '38s; then the howling of the
sirens, the howling of the survivors

mostly Chico's mama and sister
who watched him gunned down, and tried to plug
his half dozen holes with their hands

the street doesn't remember, she thought,
even with a biography of black blood dried
in its cracks and crevices

if it did, surely it would protest, or
make a solemn sound when the dawn shed
all that honest light on dark death

she cracked the eggs, put them
in the hot lard, not bothering with the bowl
breaking yolks blindly in the black skillet

in black sky above us, the shreiks
of the shells cut the air, sharp, until
the dreaded booms which tell us
how close

how close the rounds landed
to our trench, where we hunker, drenched
in dreck, mud and blood, an unwilling
audience to this martial symphony

screams stream skyward
and comingle with the next volley,
a cacophonous courtship of vibrations,
invisible, but we know it's there

a miserable marriage of metal
and flesh--monkeys made into men
who ****** their own; who are determined
to sing these sour songs

when the lobbies stop, the only sounds
are the winds, the ones which will gently carry
the sounds of men moaning, crying,
praying for silence

A year from now a man
will be thinking aloud
asking God if he eats right
and quits drinking and smoking
will you rid me of the cancer
but God will start laughing
and that will be the answer
so the man will move to Africa
and then to India where there
are many a God and naked
dancers but the chancre
wouldn't go away so he went
to New Hampshire where a doctor
said so sad, so sad as he said
to his secretary who was pulling
up her *******, oh yeah, honey,
take all of this poor man's money
and make him feel younger again
and so swell, so she did and the old
man returned to the mountains
and his cabin staring at pine knots
on the wall that all look so strange
so he'll pick up his gun and shoot
his old woman, his dog, then himself
thinking life is a rotten godforsaken
place when a man can't afford to live
and our healthcare system is a disgrace.

Some nights I lie awake
dreaming of a woman
who could make me want
to want to live another day
another year or maybe
just an hour or two
until dawn wraps her warm
arms around me once again.

I hauled clay
for days
to fill the deep
washout of our love
and all your old loves
who bled to death
too, I even searched
the cold evenings
of your eyes
and ran my fingers
through your moonlight
while tasting the blood
of strangers on your lips
but I would have
to have a backhoe
and a crowbar
to finally get down
to the heart
of the matter at night
and in the rain
though I'm afraid
I would only find
a deep dark cave
with blind starfish
like those I see
swimming in
the cold sky tonight.