Changing buses at Flamingo and Decatur,
a Sister ogles my comped leather jacket,
while braceros mill about across the street,
awaiting any drive-by job offer.

This is the Vegas never seen from the Strip;
a town of cheap gifts and off-the-books labor,
where paychecks disappear in Dollar Loan Centers,
every cranny packing a local's casino.

A hundred taxis queue outside the Palms,
like pilot fish seeking ectoparasites upon a shark.
Inside the thousand dollar escorts hustle
overextended gamblers busting hard 16's at the tables.

I told the Sister I'd won the jacket. Impressing
her that anyone would ever be a winner,
watched her intentionally cross the street
to invite a bracero out to breakfast.

The 103 bus downtown ran late.
Leaving my losing parlay tickets on the bus,
I walk through the parking lot of despair,
the casino's glass doors awaiting me.

The stars once more have lost their race
Through night-sky versus mercurial moon.
In this defeat no dishonor will debase
Futile efforts to intersect upon the lune.

Desert scents of juniper and Mormon Tea
Waft fragrant above the comfort fire smoke.
Banana yucca roasting at my knee,
Fleshy fruit consumption for us hungry folk.

Nevada nights nip raw this time of year;
Our lot is cast by glowing embers,
Whose reflector stones essential to survival,
Stave off cold that we need not fear
Frostbite to peripheral members,
Till sunlight returns with warmth's revival.

I.

Sunday mornings in Vancouver
even pigeons sleep in till 10 A.M.
Undaunted, I walk down Granville shortly before 8
seeking lox bagels with capers, red onions and cream cheese,
two breve lattes, and a newspaper. In truth,
panhandlers on the corner of Robson
have far greater chance of scoring.
An unexpectedly sunny February morn
suffices to spur me on. I am attuned to all vibration.
Breath of the awakening city
exhales manna upon the shop awnings.
Bagels rendered superfluous,
I scarf images instead ---
trolley buses, an umbrella shop, falafel stands ---
delicious Canadian visual cuisine.

                                 II.

Vancouver is a nymph. Of that I'm sure.
I hear flirtatious giggles trill
from darkened alleys between hotels.
Spotted her once across the street on Dunsmuir,
seated on a walk bench reading a Margaret Atwood novel.
Bus passed between us and she vanished.
Caught a later glimpse through the window
of a walk-up dim sum restaurant in Chinatown.
Flew the stairs, only to find an empty table and
discarded napkin smudged with candy pink lipstick.
She watches me.

                                                III.

Turns out there are no Sunday morning papers in Vancouver,
but I locate the bagels and espresso backtracking on Helmcken.
The barista smiles as I approach, sets down her Atwood novel.
I leave a Toonie in gratuity.
B.C. wind pushes ******* my turned back,
as I rush our breakfast back to the Executive.
A nymph goes roller-blading by toward False Creek.
The Gastown Steam Clock whistles that it's 10 A.M.
A flock of pigeons lifts in flight.

Black lake reflects a trail of ivory plumes,
Cockatiel's alabaster tail of feathers.
Such loveliness can only be the moon's,
Which skinny-dips in lunar altogethers.

Raccoons catch fish along the shore,
Fastidious paws clutching their prizes.
She paddles her canoe with silent oar,
Observing nature's soft nocturne disguises.

Silhouetted loons rock low upon the waves,
Asleep till sunlight sets them to their songs.
Her wake bisects the path the moon engraves,
As wilderness whispers tranquilly she belongs.

She'll stay the night foregoing comfort fire,
Moonlight enough by which to pitch a tent.
And come tomorrow should anyone inquire,
No trace reveals her overnight encampment.

Redds shine like new nickels on the dark river bottom,
salmon have returned to spawn the Deschutes,
navigating by primal memories written in DNA,
an internal Tom-Tom GPS wired in their brains.

Watching them struggle up the ladder,
consumed with a drive to leave offspring,
they are herculean athletes battling
the current and the inexorable pull of gravity.

Were these the fry I helped to seed four years ago?
A Squaxin woman told me once,
ghosts of her Coastal Salish ancestors
ride the salmon out to sea and home again.

Roe in these redds dream also of the sea,
their salty eyes and nostrils perceiving
spirits in secret claret-red kelp beds.
The waters ask only to be haunted again.

Mr. Ivories

entertains with elan,
daily during cocktails on the mezzanine level.
Jolene always orders a Black Russian,

mine is a Dewar's and water.
We drop a fiver in his basket on the Steinway,
along with a request for "Ebb Tide",

Jolene's personal favorite.
He conjures an image of Fred Astaire at keyboard,
his tails flipped elegantly over the piano bench,

like long black raven's plumes.
Jolene points out two announcers from CNN,
seated opposite. Makes us feel

important by mere association.
Our waitress asks, would we like another round
before the hour's end, as we speculate

about Mr. Ivories' musical propensity.
Time escapes in moonlit harmonic vapors,
leaves us already longing our next soiree.

Third day of this trek descending
rapidly from cloud forest into high jungle habitat,
alive with hummingbirds and orchids,
her Q'ero porters guide the tour group
to Intipunko, "Gate of the Sun".
At 4:30 AM and 10,000 feet altitude
biting cold cracks stone, eats exposed flesh,
stealing breath as she gulps pale sunlight.
Coca leaves wadded in her cheek
forge mind against the acts of atmosphere.
A lifelong pilgrimage to this purpose,
observation of the sunrise over Machu Picchu.

The Q'ero pass around a sack of pemmican.
What meat it is, she doesn't ask.
It smells of canvas, but tastes of apricot.
Her fate entrusted to these guides,
she eats what they offer.
This Inca Trail is marked with their scent;
they follow signposts painted on thin air,
read morning mists like road maps.
They have brought her to this citadel,
Lost City of Peace and Power.
Her life for now at equinox,
shaman-guides have opened her vision
to the hitching post of the sun.