we shared a camel
after my thumb stopped you
I took the first drag
before I handed it to you
you trusted my spit enough to share
and my road look enough
for me to be there,
in your new Olds Eighty-eight

you
had just come back,
from there
I was on my way,
I did not ask if that was why
your right hand had only *******
and a thumb, though you told me
of trying to close an APC hatch
and the AK-47 round that kept you
from doing magic tricks

when our smoke was half gone, we passed
the dying neon of a long dead bar
safe from its stench in your new smelling car
was then you asked
if I had “anything else to smoke”
a line from our riddled anthem,
we sang like nursery rhyme

I had what I had stuffed in my socks
since thumbs attracted cops as well
as wounded warriors in shiny new rides
I piggy lit the joint with the *** before
I crushed it in your fresh ash tray
now we were sharing our deepest breaths
and whatever else we could not forget

the **** was gone by the time
we reached the last city lights
and we, in our flying chariot,
zipped into the black desert night, it
was then your demons began to howl
maybe it was a full moon that called them out
to ride on its beams into the starry sky
where they could dance with other devils
and gods who had forsaken them, and you

I did not understand your moans, your tears
or the song you played on the eight track
that chanted about freedom which could not be bought or sold
or to whom you spoke when you wailed
you were sorry, sorry again and again,
I only knew they were ghosts
spirits kept at bay by the light of day
but there to haunt you in the dark
“Reggie, Big Mike and Cleveland”
all silent as you begged them
to forgive you for some simmering sin
I could not understand,
(not then in the desert dark,
though one day I would beseech other ghosts
to let me off the hook as well)

your cries did stop when you turned
onto a rutted desert road,
where you put the pedal to the floor
and the rocks pocked the undercarriage
like machine gun fire

you stopped,
and popped out the eight track
a half mile from highway 54
I lit another camel in the synovial silence
your tears kept streaming down your face
but you no longer called out to the ghosts, perhaps
left behind you on that black highway

I don’t know if they spoke to you
when I handed you the smoke, you did
look around, as if someone was there
before reaching over to open my door…

I did not ask why you were leaving me
with the moon and the stars and the sand,
so far from the lights and sound, or why
I could not feel my feet when
they touched the ground, the last thing
I saw was your dust filling the rumbling air
and the orange glow of the camel
flying through the blue night