There had been some sort of attack.. something was compromised. We had to get the rocket up to a certain height to destroy the source of the infection but there was no fuel-- until we remembered we had certain small quantities of nuclear fuel in storage somewhere far below in the machinery.

I could travel to distant planets but I had to go to a certain street at the back of a small english housing complex. The dirt paths were muddy and all of the buildings were covered in pieces of paper with warnings on them. Mom and I went. I wanted to show her this new trick.

We travelled to other planets by dressing warmly and laying back with our eyes closed in the front seat of the car. And then you were there. And you could do things and interact with people and bring stuff back. But you always awoke again in the front seat of the car. Mom didn't believe it and so she was fidgeting and talking and I never travelled anywhere at all.

the hills were beginning to grow
the grass greening on the approach
to Blue Earth, and how
in summer
Minnesota shed her old coat
to shy guilty into brief silty lakes
like the
joy of a little kid, sneaking a forbidden dip.

remarking, casually, about
white warm flowers hung low from
planned oaks, and the impossible way the town
pulled local hills close, to coat
in dandelions. and cultivate
all under an ambitious midwestern sun.


          rolling through the stop sign, hand on mine
          you told me if you’re moving at all

          you should keep it in second gear.


and we had so far to go, but in the light that
broke through westbound clouds,
we became less so.
contented to spread toes out in earth we
dug into Minnesota, the middle coast:
a land we could like to get to know.



and you:
looking down at the salt, the sand, the scars of
the grand american plantation:
the last coast.
knowing that by the next coast, we
you and me.
we'd be through.

          saying, ‘how could anybody die?’

          saying,
          ‘how could anybody tell you anything true?’



undercut by the honest waves of the little lake,
the hum that drummed in my gas tank.
trying, for once, at a little piece of truth:

          when I leave this place I leave
          a part of me behind.

          and that part of me
          will be you.



saying there’s only so much sweetness in the soil,
only so long after the thaw,
and grief is rich and dark and made for sowing:
must be, for maintaining verdant local hills, must be
for to keep corn sweet. must be for to put
grief
on the table. must be for to
keep with us.

          for to keep a little bit to eat.

saying, we bleed but together we make a hole
to bury both our bodies in.
saying there’s a west out west but too late it’s
already hemmed us in.

          saying now I am only a fragile assimilation of this weak
          and fractured purpose that drives me, and you are

          beautiful enough I would lie to let you love me.


even I would scorch this soil if only things wouldn’t grow I would
saying Blue Earth is still in the trucker's atlas is
only an excuse for sunshine. a point,
where freeways go.
saying,
“with earth, so green, that here they call it 'Blue'.”


          saying
          “I could learn to love a leopard.”

          saying
          “how dare you.”

it's been a while since I wrote "a day in the life" or even
those little diatribes about the girls I like
but tonight the keys on my keyboard feel shorter, somehow
more eager to go down
and I'm tired
but it's good to write.

I'll start with monday I guess because that's when today started
I don't know how I keep this up and survive, but
I'm pretty sure I've been sleeping three nights a week for
months now.
it's like... haha... a year after polyphasing I need to make up for lost time.
Monday was Dana's parents ("parental") anniversary, it says in
the pink striped box, on the week view, of my calendar
I don't remember getting up but I started the clock at 10am sharp with
"remove sets and 5 easy steps from current"
no, never mind, I remember it now
(I checked my texts)
Damian invited me to breakfast, Tuneup, I said 8:45
he said he'd be there earlier. I got there at 8:30, before him
and sat in the back room. read the cached news items on my iPad. ate
a breakfast burrito with bacon, smothered, green
because I didn't want him to see me eating, again,
a burrito with the chili inside.
but he sat in the other room with… someone I can't remember
(I heard them, grabbed my coffee and switched seats)
he had kids, though. so we talked about kids. and they talked about kids
I don't really care about describing work any more.

Dana's mad at me, now, definitely– if it's 10am on Monday
It may have started last night… I don't know. She's mad because I work all day
and she has off
not that I know what we'd do to celebrate.
I went to Northern New Mexico College… impressed Sandy... Sandy something.
Impressed Damian by impressing Sandy, and as we drive back from Española
I realize that he's somehow grown into a larger part of my life than I thought would happen
and I'm almost wondering now if
when we leave from here
Dana will be enough to fill it.

It had snowed over the weekend, the mountains above Santa Fe were red with blood and the
valley spread out beneath us was white like… "white people", and it was (I think, should have been)
dark by the time I got home.

Dana had cleaned everything… and she never cleans everything, but she was so mad
and I was mad. hell. I was mad. because I don't want to be this person either
I mean, of course I do
can we ever be anyone, but who we want to be?
but more than this person I wanted to be somebody who suffers, and suffers for something good
and I knew that I could righteously suffer for this trip and for Damian and not have to suffer
for whatever person I might be afraid of becoming.

So when I told her I was going to work all night, she was even more upset and then we were
leaving for her christmas party but I realized that I have no interest in Starbucks or
the people she works with and she had no interest in me right then so I told her I would stay and
I guess at least she only texted me three or four times furiously.

and I… worked. I could tell you how. but I don't care.
and she came home. mad.
but Jones and Katy came over later, it was my idea
and I tried to install my new electronic sensor gadget while they three
sat on the bed and read poetry
(Katy and Jones had broken up earlier that day)

and after they left… at maybe three, Dana was being nicer to me
and I held her some, and we made out, but I
worked
but maybe, this time, it was a little more ok.

I went to breakfast, again
went to Patricia's, felt sad.
Came home, again. drove Dana to work, again.
Checked Ryan's mail box to see if I'd missed our delivery.
spent an hour and a half on Skype with Jeff, Connor listened...
I want to say admiringly

and then we took more adderall and started writing code and things got
a little fadey for a few hours, but I was ok because I am always ok and Connor
is really good at this, really– I mean. Connor is really good. and I want him to be happy.
and to try and tell him this I bought him burgers at five star (in Devargas, where we saw Todd)
and offered to give him my car.
we dropped off Katy's phone at Connor's house and came back here, took more drugs and tried to write but
it's getting over our heads now, and I'm feeling soft and strange
but soon Dana is off work and she seems, even, happy now
as we drive to Ben Sobol's birthday, where I gave him a book
and allowed myself to entertain, for a few minutes, the thought that Ryan might come to Lima. but we had to
come home

because I know I might be tired by now, know I was once before.

and tomorrow there is so much to do.

but sleep wouldn't come and I started writing my thoughts out, about instagram and privacy
and, to Damian, about whether compiling .less was worth it in the long run
and, thinking, who will argue with me like this when santa fe is done?
and then Dana and I had *** and now is the part where I sleep so hard it hurts but I keep thinking and it feels nice instead.
and so it's four am now, and I write.

and write. caught up on time.

still trying to catch my breath, from the ***– I've had a whole pack of cigarettes today, haha, maybe I'm
suffering myself to death
but mostly it doesn't even hurt, I just can't breathe, and my heart races to break free of my chest
(to go where it will be better kept).

so I wrote this because I looked down at my feet on the berber carpet lit by the rope light under our bed and I was afraid
that I might never again know what it was like to look down at something like that,
soft, orange, warm. home.
and with Dana, falling asleep to my left.


we leave for lima two weeks from today.
I told Ryan last night that it's because it's too easy here, because everything's been done
but it's a cruel thing to say… I think… when no one has it easy here, nobody has what they want
in fact it seems like almost everyone, not just here, spends most of life trying to get this
while we see our satisfaction only as an imperative to throw it away.
but.
hey. I guess I said I'd
like to die a poet
and now it's looking that way.

and I guess the reason I keep standing outside, the reason I texted Rachel from Danny's porch is that I've always
left every place with a plan to come back to
all those Rachel's fire escapes.
but I've never yet looked back, and certainly never gone home.
so the question, as I see it now is:
am I always going forward because I've always been running away?
or is it just impossible to go back to where you came?

because I am happy here. and this, for the first time, does not feel like an escape
so I'm scared it will turn out like one anyway.

September again fire season is over.
Winter still to begin.
It won't snow yet though, and we know why:
it's too dry.

I saw your face in a picture magazine, cut it, gently, from the frame
took in your nose also your cheeks much the same and walked
my eyes down the line of your brow
and gently off the page.
(I have never once stayed in the same place.)

And the refrigerator fills, dust gathers on the floor, the leaves outside also look dry and I don't hang things on the walls anymore.
September again
that's not what walls are for.

September, I
again once wrote letters that also meant something.
But I don't mean it anymore.

the red heat at last broke across the
misshapen backs of two old crows
lifting from The Omen Tree to cast
the day's last shadow on our lengthening lawn.
and Jess turned to me stern like she'd
might well never see the sun again and said
It's in my blood, Sloan, it's rocket-bone fever
I know it and it's got right a good hold on me, too.

        rocket-bone, she says, where your legs need to "go"
        her eyes wide like each one could take off any minute
        to unknown destinations each a little fighting piece of Jess.

and I said I love you Puck but you know you're
wound right up, tighter than baling wire and no
amount of rocket fuel is gonna rip you away from me so
        guzzle up buttercup rocket-bone or no you got
        nowhere else to go and hell baby you know even the
        Titan Two Class missile herself's got a home.

because I love you Puck and I know how it goes and
if it ain't kerosene in your bloodstream it's
the president calling on the telephone
saying you've won come on down or it's
flesh eating fish in our neighbor's pool
old Gloria Whitford, mother to eleven,
who you're certain you killed in a duel.

        and I said I'm gonna take care of you Puck cuz
        you're a crazy *** ***** and full up with **** but
        baby you're still built outta rocket parts.
        and every bit of you is still a fighting piece waiting to blow
        hit every city on the eastern seaboard you rocket-bone you
        and warheads or no hell I bet the President then even would phone,

if I ever let you go.

nothing lives at 14,000 feet.
on the high pass the last land
the grassland we'd drag our sheep
to briefly graze between the valleys of
colca, and puno.
focused in motion, heads low
wrapped round in many layers when we'd sleep.

in dens, in dark, in distrust of stars
and worn old men of mists each night,
that toothlessly bite,
at broken brown stone, gums
hopeless, hungry, salivating and desperately white.


nothing lives at 14,000 feet.
but rocks dreaming cold rock dreams.
remembering when babel fell...
fists first ****** from young rubble, to find
that hands are hands and hands can climb.

nothing lives at 14,000 feet.
but the livestock we'd drag
and keep alive, tireless
because towers are brought low
but hills only grow
and there are coats to stay the snow.


but to pass through this place we
knowing tempt death, incur
the wrath of Abraham blaspheme
the Word and the Way and
the rich air and pastures,
from which rocks are raised
to keep us from the heights for which we lust.

in old history, obvious.
forgot. spoke only in folk songs.
ritualized in rote laws.

but in secret, memorialized.
as solitary, at the highest point
each passerby takes pause...


stares down at the earth from the sky,
kneels, in the dust, picks up
three, four, not more, small brown rocks
to place at maras in defiance and triumph.

superstitiously stacking little stones.
as if to say,
"here lord.
here is something you can knock down.
here is something you can bring low."

PROLOGUE
and
each time we sleep, confess
a little desire for death.
there's just twenty names that live in your head
bukowski, ginsberg, &c.;
where each of us on this street would give away
our very lives to make
number nineteen on that list.


I
i received a letter from the alpine
in which she explained that
due to our lack of allergies, our physical beauty
and our pines
our story would likely never end
"because we've got no morals, ideals, there is
really no end game we've got
nothing we'd die for, or couldn't live without."


II
i lie awake reading what was never wrote thinking that
we'll wind up together like vines without posts


EPILOGUE
or lines, in poems.