ran myself up on the land
chasin' the dark black storm
cracked my rudders straight in half
fightin' them waves off shore,

i's up in the early morning hours
makin' sure the house not burnin
down, 20 minutes there and back to
try and prove something more

no sleep for a week 'cause i'm worried
'bout a question, the one that no one
wants to answer an' drives the nail in
could love a girl to pieces but she
ain't nothin more than the warmth
she gives an' the way she consoles

i've wrapped around him tired and sore
but i've been here, i've been here
just bones and shreds offerin' up myself
in as many ways as I can before
that just ain't enough anymore

and it never is,  the heart and soul

it never is.

all my photos are in his passenger's seat
these black and whites of him singing
and talking about the wars he has and hasn't
been in, navigating Penrose like he walked
these roads a thousand times before he ever
took a truck--

and he know everybody's name, date of birth
and probably their social, who died and when--
he's been livin' as 14 other people,
never gets no space and I'm no respecter of that
neither cause the way he looks at me used to
scare me and now I know he jus' scared himself.

saw it when he told me about Braun's body
in the brambles, and in the letters he gets from
past lovers full of jealous jargon-- you made me
feel terrible,  your fault, ending in a hundred
goodnights, she wants the last word and all I want
is for him to tell me what he's thinkin' when he's angry


'cause he is angry, with bitterness sunk down in his bones
and swimmin' 'round in his chest, he lost weight out at the rig
but kept all that melancholy to himself, brings it home and
drops it in a glass before taking it back in


he asks why I'm lookin' and it's just 'cause.
Just 'cause i'm looking at his eyelashes while
he sleeps or the lip of his brow hidin' eyes a lot lighter than you'd think, committing the eagle on his back to memory
with that scripture from Isaiah a ways off in my head,
scrawled on the back of my heart,
written at the crown of his spine,


I used to wonder about the integrity of his skin
if water'd seep through or run off, used to think
he was made of wood with rice paper shutters--
but he's a mountain, a snowcapped alp
you wouldn't know it from a ways off,
when he's just a soldier standing out
in the field, shoulders hunched, chin tucked
breathin' cold air, but Lord he warm, fierce as the
mistakes he runnin' from--

we both beggin' to be right
or good enough, for the sunlight
to make us into somethin' pretty
somethin' new and shined--
but for now i'm takin' pictures shotgun,
hiding my fingers in my pockets
thinking about the way his voice'd
prolly blow in on the curtains on a
summer's day, and he's singing
My love, is somewhere in that mountain....


*my love is somewhere in that mountain

when you're out on the bridge
with neither end in sight, in the middle
or three-quarters way, barely there or
nearly-- never call the unsteady, the
hands that reach through the fog
or slap the waters through the
abutments,

you can love across wounds
with those who meet you, or
find their way, feeling the stones
gripping the railing, they've seen
you at the crossing and have come
to share the burden

but you keep calling, you keep
pacing, you've been waiting,
imbued with confusion, your
old self a ghost, all your worries
to the surface, belly up.

you've been inspired for all the wrong reasons.
You leave him alone.
I've been inspired for all the wrong reasons.
I leave him alone.

while you were eating
cherry pie that sunday
after i reached for your
hand and your fingers
didn't curl around mine--

i took to the trees behind the cabin
and stayed the mossy grove buried
in this golden scratch
the neighbor's conversation downwind
about the mountain lion they'd spotted
and the spiritual sort of fear I felt with
my eyes closed, the mechanical click
of my own heartbeat, how things
used to flow and now they only
swarmed,
always
swallowed.

i was singing songs to call you out,
like you did the first time, when you
came up around the hillside and
followed me a ways out--
softly at first and then no more,
replaced by the force that came
upon me, where suddenly I was
uprooting trees, picking the most
desolate, gnarled aspens--unhinging
their roots to press my heel into their
soft bases, hulking forward and watching
them stretch out and out and out--

I found old yarn and tied
it for later, to find, to untie
to hope for second chances
I left the copse and you were


eating cherry pie on the porch
rummaging through coolers
oil sloshing through your bones
dragon fire in your blood
hard-headed over puerile matters
over your time, over the weeks
staunchly grounded into your own
wild western ways,

The duck's back, the bear's pelt
You've been roaming alone in the forests
As the beasts do, the lost, the frightened,
Admiring the darkness of your own shadow
The way it draws and casts away,
Doubly conflicted of your nature that
Mostly takes and takes and takes
Bears and
Men and
You.

around the time Hurricane Matthew was
tearing through Florida, it was 10:34pm in
Divide--

A Coors bottle pressed into your beard,
settled on your bottom lip in contemplation
a boyish reverie spun between us when you spoke
softly relaying the genealogy of the Hatfields & Mccoys,
Ole Ran'l, Devil Anse piping in, your accent seeps through
real Midwestern like--stops when you're on about prayer
trees and La Llorona


But I was deeply introspective,
heavily burdened by a Randy Travis song
how earlier that morning your fingers
had found their way around my hips--
        mine around your waistband, down your spine
        a helpless explorer driven across the mainland
       transversing shoulder blades, fascinated by chains
        around your neck, nooses, playthings or jewelry
         how around 3 am your gravely voice sought me
         out across a sea of torrid thoughts to ask if I was cold


yes. probably.


and when we start the decline, tripping lazily over moss clumps
dead grass, fallen trees, I storm and plow ahead because
when in doubt, race yourself.
Sheltered by the truck gate,
you've come up ahead and stand
in front of me, unassuming
both hands complacent--
so I ask you to kiss me
and there's a fiddle playin'
in my ears, a highway of
country streamin' through
my veins, or,
something
like that.

I look up because a child is screaming
but it's just the man on the steps--
he takes a drag and wheezes

folds in half, disappears inside
his hood, nothing but the tip of
australian umber for a face

he curls again in anticipation
these pitiful silent gasps followed
by a wail, the children screaming
the black whistling.