he imagines
he has carpal tunnel
from channel surfing;
reruns,
his greatest
weapon against
insomnia

the ficus, the
philodendron
she left
(with half
the wedding
china)
are taking
an eternity
to die

a fortnight
without a teaspoon
of water would
wilt the most
hardy specimens
of their kingdom

perhaps she
bequeathed him
cacti in
disguise

he asks
if they are
what they
appear to be:
leafy indoor
greenery

or prickly
survivors
that grow
only where
all things
are venomous
or have thorns

they swear
they are not
botanical
imposters

liars

he turns up
the volume
on his flat screen
to drown out
the mendacity
of flora

the fauna,  
after all,
were not
to be trusted
either

she sits by her window to write,
ever fond of the morning light;
not a day passes when she fails
to pen an epistle to him

she envisions him pulling
the missives from his saddle bags
perusing them a second time, a third,
admiring her chancery cursive

a year now since she saw him:
steady on his steed, his regiment
waiting, eager to join the fray, to ride
north under his proud command

perhaps at eventide, she will
write another letter, in case she
forgot anything she intended to say
this morn, or just to reach out again
before the setting of the sun

a cloud passes as she signs
her name, another as she folds
the paper; soon it seems, a gathering
storm--she places the letter in the
envelope, its traveling home

she turns the candle to pour
the wax, then presses the seal;
another story from her to him
ready for its long journey

the stroll from her room
to the mantel in the parlor
to the pile of paper that grows
higher above the hearth

a cold cavern of late, for
without him, she eschews all
things warm--for she knows
he must be freezing in the
cruel ground where he fell

(Spartanburg, South Carolina, Winter, 1863)

I looked into his eyes
not knowing if he had
a reciprocal vision

no doubt he smelled me; his
sense of scent more developed than
we sluggish two legged beasts

for each step I took
back, he took one forward, our
synchronized death dance

if by chance, I survived
my feckless faith would not
be revived

after all, I had a shotgun
pointed at his noble chest; without
my terrible tool of modernity
I would be his feral feast

when my deed was done
and this creature was supine,
desecrated by the fearful squeeze
of my finger

which God would I thank?
the one man wrote into existence
to allay all mortal fears

or the one I believe carved
canyons from stone, the one who
knew river life was flowing in
every newborn raven's heart

from which one should I dread
retribution for such a profane act?
which would punish me for the slaughter,
the scarlet blood in the pure white snow?

both--both would have seen,
both would have known, the tyranny
of evil men--me, all my brothers cast from
Eden--such a ******* of stardust

***** and he
make their way
across the stretch
of sand

behind them,
the hard rock land
of memory

the crustaceans
will return--the tides
their clock

not he;
this march
is his last,
waves will
swallow him
gag him

while he briefly
forgets his purpose  
and clings to
this world;

soon though,
his lungs with fill
he will sink
to depths:

a blue burial,
a seaweed symphony
his dirge

the ***** return,
but not he--the ebb and flood
of waters no longer
his province

(poem's image: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1174175556043500&set;=a.102525519875181.1742.100003531994461&type;=3&theater;¬if;t=like¬if;id=14914495906541620

coyote yelping helps;
the winds, too, distract him
from the now

the Comanche who
put the arrow in his back
lays beside him

gone before him;
that is condign comfort
to him

he cannot speak, nor move
his tongue, but he smells the
*****, the creosote

he sees the clouds,
stingy white whiffs in a hot
summer sky

as good a day to die
as any he reckons, and
he feels no pain

again the yelping,
closer now -- are they talking
about him?

will they beat the buzzards
to his body? would they begin their
feast while his eyes are yet open?

he closes them; the flapping of
the wings does not arouse him--he
knows they are on the Comanche

beaks and talons at work
he lets himself drift, content the
vultures are choosing the dead

but they fly off; the coyote pack
approaches--the pads of their paws
patter on the hard caliche

he lets himself sleep
dreaming now of sweet green grass
and good water

and the coyotes begin their work:
the ***** and he now a solitary offering
for the ravenous dogs

Teresa climbs on the bus
before the sun, if she has
the fare

to get there, where she
makes the bread; she's been at this
two of her nineteen years  

yet she has fears, they will
come for her--green card or not;
though they like her rolls

she kneads the big *****, pulls,
pinches, a sculpting of dough, a laying
of trays, one after another

then, from the Iglesias,
they come, decked in their finery
though she does not see

she only hears the litany
of language she can't comprehend,
a clanging of trays, laughter

the urging of the jefe to work
faster, bake the bread; the communion
wafers did not fill them

now they are here, breaking fast,
forgetting the words they just heard
the songs they sang

Teresa does not complain; she
is glad to feed the worshipers, though
they will never know her name

nor will they stop for
her in the pouring rain,
the blistering sun

Teresa never wavers
next Sabbath will be the same:
dawn, the dough, the oven

it is the work--her hands
which make the bread others break,
the grace granted to serve

holy, holy, holy...

I see black ones, white ones,
tall ones, short ones

the stops have no benches;
only signs, saying:

we stop here, to ****** you peasants
from the mean streets

some lean on the poles, weary
of waiting for their ride

or the winning lottery ticket
they dream of buying

others hunker, if their knees
still allow such a stance

or by chance, pride doesn't
keep them upright

the last one I saw was curled
in fetal repose

dead or just resting, preparing
for a new beginning?

I will never know, for I didn't
stop, at the bus stop

but I'm with them, traveling hope's
haggard, hapless highway

he shoulders shame
carrying the weight of the dead,
slung over him

partnering with gravity,
these memory moguls slow him down
though he keeps trudging

when one drops, another
takes his place -- first his father, then
a brother, stillborn

not half the weight of a stone,
yet his carcass bends his back
like any full grown beast

for he did not weep
with his mother when its blue soul
was yanked from her womb

nor did he shed a tear
when his father's heart gave out
a billion beats too soon

when he forgets his sins as son  
he recalls another one--the boy he
slew on a brown river's bank;

floating still in the Mekong, riddled
with the rifle's rabid rounds, he often catches
a ride in memory's stream

leading a relay team of shame shifters
he carries with him every step, though
the world sees him walk alone

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

two standing on the prairie,
shovels in hand--a third at their feet;
he knows no haste, but the diggers do,
for the sun is rising higher, hotter

the herd, the other hands
are plodding north, only their dust
left in the morning sky; the caliche
is baked hard, waiting

for the shovels to dig
a shallow grave, unmarked,
though there is a lone flower,
yellow against a gray plain

the blossom will be his headstone, until
its roots take their last drink, its stem withers,
its petals fall to the earth, and a wild
wind song becomes their dirge

for John, it came with
the raucous roar of crowds when he scored
the winning touchdown; for Willie,
when he drove in the final run

for Paul, it came when he charged
a *** bunker on a chunk of rock from hell
he heard no applause--only the rat-tat-tat
of the gun that mowed him down

for Anna, it came with no
sound and fury; only a gentle thank you kiss
from her girl who told her she had been
the best mother in the world

for Rafael, his final hurrah was humble:
a smile from the lady who handed him his last check
after he mopped his last floor, cleaned his final
porcelain bowl, after a patient half century

for me, I don't know when it will be...
perhaps it occurred long ago, in an arena
or on a field I didn't recognize as a place of honor
or perchance tomorrow, when I learn to die

spikes on graph paper
a biography of the earth's
distracted driving

masses merging with another:
hostile takeovers of stone; skyscrapers crumble,
choking apocalyptic dust in their wake

then tsunamis soar,
a fierce baptismal; my mountain home
spared the deluge though

inside, the family's china escaped
from its cabinet, only to be gravity's meal
and shatter in shards myriad

one serving dish survived,
flesh from the lamb filled it, steaming
only a fortnight ago

we'll buy new plates, ones
that will remain in silent stacks, until
another festive event

or until the seismograph records
another jagged jump, scribing one more tale
of earth's lamentable tensions released

he sat bedside with his great grandmother
stroking a hand laced with what he saw as
tiny blue rivers, flowing from a thin wrist
dammed by ancient knuckles

boulders chiseled by eighty-four years

he read from his book while Mommy
dozed in the chair, and nurses squeaked
in and out, all with half smiles he could
not decipher, for Grammy was sick

and when his mother was awake, she cried

he hadn't seen her tears before;
he tried not to look, preferring his book
with its pictures of the sun, orbiting
planets and mazy moons

and spaces in between where heaven might hide

he understood most of its words,
and none were of heavens--unless noxious gasses
and swirling clouds of dust were the winds which
whipped through the pearly gates

but his seven wise years knew that was not so

when he turned to the page of the
penultimate planet from the sun,YOU-ruh-nuss
he discovered it took four score and four years
to orbit our star once

math's mystery may have eluded him

though coincidence was not yet
in his lexicon, and now he knew Grammy
had her times around the sun, her eighty four
equaling one for the great tilting Uranus