My tired eyes and red
glow on the tip of my last
cigarette tells me it’s way
past midnight again as I
try roping a star smoking
on my porch by the light
of a big old yellow moon
and I could have sworn I
saw her riding by wearing
black boots, her tight-assed
jeans and a blue bandanna
heading  west to Montana.

Like old friends making up
after too many years
of the fine and high lonesomes
it’s time we get shed of our ways

So take a deep breath
and listen up
all you bad hombres
I **** you not

You may have run off
into the ditch of your past
and let love spin like a wheel
until an old man came by
looking for pop bottles
and bagged it all up

We’ve seen a lifetime of days
sweating blood for nothing
and now this is the night
of nights to do something

Keep your boot on the clutch,
steady, and ready to drive through
the fog of love’s misery or mystery,
the happy, the heartbroken, a sly
smile and a flick of a tongue on red lips,
your truck hitting smooth on all six.

I’m making a boat
nailing driftwood together
maybe I’ll make it across
and maybe I won’t, you know
because nothing floats forever
still, it’s good wood to toss
on a pyre when I’m standing
by a fire over on Odin’s
Valhalla’s Landing.

This bed
is a sad cafe
and morning
a table
I drank from
like a legacy
of one who once
loved
a woman
in a blue dress
draped
on the floor
like a rug
by the door.

Nights like these
when the moon floats
on the creek, all pale
and swollen, I try
to sleep without dreaming
of a small child, still
and not breathing, like
a leaf felled too soon
during the season
of the monsoon rains,
heavy as the pain of a father
looking here and there,
everywhere for a daughter
somewhere in all of this water.

In these parts
sometimes a man
will walk into a bar
and say something
he’s soon ashamed of
then leave with his friends
paying no attention.

O, Orca
Tahlequah —

so much more
than just J35 —

for 17 days
more than
1,000 miles
of heartache
you gave us —

waiting, watching
as you grieved —

carrying the weight
of the world’s eyes —

teaching each
and everyone —

grieving mothers
have their own —

ways and time
to say
goodbye.