Is it weak to say I don't know
What I am without you?  Can't think
How the sun will continue its
Illusion, or how the waters
Will divide for my safe passage?
How to make it through the minefield
Of memories, or the maze that
Starts sometime before the morning?
It's hard to wear an expression,
How to find one less unnerving
Than my own reflection.  I guess
That's why the followers of God
Make black the mirrors.  But I see
Nothing anywhere except you.

Damnation's doing well this year,
Fine crop sprung up on city streets--
Or get it free online, I hear.
My reading list includes the beats,
My playlist too, Pop smoke in peace.
We park the ice cream trucks for morgues,
The unmasked emperor, his niece
Unveils; psycopathy, call out the guards.
This will go on, it could get worse.
The heat don't help, we're on our own-
The preacher's wife believes we're cursed,
Infested by the doubt we've shown--
I think of Dean, the railroad track,
With no one there to have his back.

Bodhisattva knows the blues, eight
Bars that give you the double pour,
And 2 safe ways around a fight.
They's steppin now, come midnight hour,
Slantin out back like kids in school
With one quick break before the bell,
A natural way to play the fool
Against a painted concrete wall.
Nine months ain't long to carry fire,
Get lighter and go back to work,
Respectin on the shoes you wear.
A waitress ain't got time to talk
You out of ending hell's night shift
On accident, tied off & hit.

Could I sleep tonight in your dreams
I would live again that cold night
We made love on the leather couch
At your friend Karl's stone house outside
The city limits past the farm
With the field of llamas and the
Windmills cranking ecstatically
In those stolen hours when brides
Before their second marriages
Give someone much less practical
A ride to be remembered long
After the cans behind the car
Have rusted or been flattened by
The side of the road that leaves town.

Men ate first at get togethers,
While the women who had laid the
Table waited and I, too young
To yet be called upon for prayers,
Shared a table with my cousins,
Who would later, as the sun set,
Shed their garments in the cow barn,
Just to see their difference from me.