Sitting naked in the jump seat
My last shower over a week ago
I let my legs fall open
In the humid warmth
My ***** smells strong
And fills the stuffy cab
With the scent of prehistory
That would bring males
In a distant time
To drag me violently
And fill me with seed
But now
We wash our *******
Or else
We certainly should
So that males can't be driven
To madness by the scent
Of pheromones unwashed
For days or weeks or years
Or ever
Before Summer's Eve
Perfumed our taints
With lavender and rose
And before an unwashed *****
Was an unsightly thing
That prehistoric draw
Was how we persisted
I dip a finger in
And hold it beneath my nose
I am a woman
Albeit unclean

I want to get pregnant
With a ******* daughter
And run away
To the south

I would carry her
First in my belly
Then to my breast
Then on my back

Through mountains
Where the language
Flows like rivers and streams
Con tildes y acentos

We would eat with our hands
And bathe under moonlight
Singing to the gods
Howling with the wolves

Our home would be Earth
Our backs to money
And billboards
And national pride

Me and my ******* daughter
Anathema to the world
That sings praises
To purity and capital

Me and my ******* daughter
Weaving through time
And happiness and sorrow
Like the river

Maybe she would run
From that life
That would seem to me so full
In search of más

Perhaps she would fly away
To learn inglés
And meet her father
And cousin and grandma

To live in a house
And eat with forks and knives
Drive a car
And have an office job

I can only hope that in my twilight
She would return to me
To sing again with the wolves
Before I die

"I don't want you to think I'm racist. I love black people! I just hate *******."
Now, you will not believe how many  white folk have said this to my face.
That they smile, thinking themselves so eloquent and clever,
Illustrates a problem to me much larger than the hatred of a race.

My tongue stays. I wouldn't want my "angry ******" to show her teeth.
She would ask if the color or the speech or the level of poverty made the black,
Or the ****** or the ***** or the **** or monkey or beast.
She may be eloquent and clever herself, but those white ears would never hear that.

We are conditioned to be blind and deaf and loudly ignorant to reality.
The rich and powerful have made us starkly numb to our own folly and pride,
So that we may believe ourselves to be indignant most righteously,
While we unconsciously hate all that is different, opposed, other, outside.

But I will be the same human with all my eloquence and cleverness, pride and folly,
Whether I am seen as "black" or "******" or maybe simply just "Cydney"

He says:

"The trouble with a mask is that it never changes."

And I think of you.
I think of your mask
And how it hasn't changed
And how it never will
According to Bukowski.

I wonder if you are real.
Really, actually, truly real.
I wonder if you are just a mask.
I wonder if you are hollow.

The most addictive things
Are the poisons we create ourselves.
You, then, must be man-made.
You are shoddily me-made.

Every sweet word and sensation
Was created in my fantasy.
I projected complex emotions
Onto your lifeless mask.

You will never change.
You will never change.
You will never change.
You are just a mask

And Bukowski is warning me from his grave.

There are certain things
That are constant
At every truck stop:

The **** bottles,
never far from the trash cans
The diesel rivers,
perfuming the air like poisoned flowers
The old men,
casting their eyes down as they walk
The idling engines,
singing lullabies to those in "sleeper"
The dog,
whining, waiting, or watching
The cat,
pretending not to care at all
The noisy reefers,
The bluetooth headsets,
The IFTA stickers,
The overpriced everything

And for me,
The hope that it will all go away