the green grove a magnet to my eye
on these sun baked plains

I enter the glade to take shade with the cicadas
and vampire mosquitos

then I see it, Eden’s villain, coiled and rattling,
red ready to strike

I raise my staff, I too programmed to survive, do to what millennia
have taught

still we are in this staring standoff—silent save its rattle, deaf
I am to the chorus of insects

neither of us moves for an eternity of seconds, until the snake lunges at my feet

where its fangs find a field mouse, and devour it while I watch, an unwitting witness to expiry other than my own  

I leave the copse, whole, content another creature has, for today, taken my place in the bloodletting

drought dry only a fortnight, and no trace
of the swimmers--not a bloated bass or a skeletal carp
only a few lily pads burnt russet by the sun

all else, perverse interlopers from modernity:  
bullet banged beer cans, truck tires,  
and the ubiquitous bottle water plastic
waiting patiently for the next ice age

no sign of one fish that emitted a last gilled gasp here

deep beneath the bed though
progenitors rest, theirs and ours,
antediluvian, Permian, as permanent as the word allows
my footfalls above them today
tomorrow silent where they lay

a roadkill feast, this doe that met truck bumper the black night before

now in the Texas sun, talons and beaks make easy work of eyeballs and entrails

the asphalt a convenient griddle, slow cooking dead deer, while the ravenous birds dine

somewhere in the brush, a childless mother, with no incantation to bring her baby back

this creature without words only senses a void--******* no longer gnawed and ******

what mourning for this loss, now attended to by buzzards fast filling their guts

until I come upon them, my own bumper approaching at warp speed

my metal beast to avenge this desecration
with a twist of my wrist, a turn of tires

fast from the red road a flapping of blue-black wings--all but one escapes my wrath

he took too long to take flight, unaware my grill could **** with such impunity

a simple twist of the wrist, a bump, a thump, and one less vulture feeds on the dead

above him, his brethren wait, riding cool currents -- my execution but a brief deterrent to their wake

I found you, in a stack of photos:
the 2D you, I can't touch, taste or smell

the first thing that came to mind was sharing a joint with you and spilling the chocolate ice cream cone on your skin-******* shorts

and sneaking into the Woolworth bathroom, and our freaked frenzied scrubbing of fabric with nimble fingers and pink powdered hand soap

and how we couldn't stop laughing
until a woman older than time caught us
before we could consummate

which we did after running the entire
200 yards to my van, wet white shorts in your hand, with me looking over my shoulder for imagined narcs and other freedom snatchers

when we finished, we shared my last Winston, blowing smoke rings in the gathering gloom

your shorts were dry, and our high
had worn off--you didn't kiss me goodbye when I dropped you off

between your pad and mine,
I hit a black mongrel pup wandering on the dark asphalt

I scooped him off the road
with my hands; lifeless, light he was...

I found you, in that stack of ancient
photos--that was the day we conceived a son, one you had shredded in a doctor's office for $300 in illegal tender

I see the messy ice cream, your naked nineteen year old flesh,  smoke rings disappearing, the poor mutt dying

though not for lack of trying, I can't see the child you had executed in utero--without trial, judge or jury, save an elusive dream
of freedom

Albuquerque, 1967

I had one of the first--a clunky chunk of modernity in my 1984 Beamer,

no speed dial, no contact book, and Bluetooth was as far away as the moon

but boy I was cool yapping while cruising down the PA Turnpike,
my Lab on the seat beside me, eagerly eavesdropping and slobbering in equal measure

he got to witness the end, the news delivered over the airways:
she was dumping me because I was too needy

too many flowers, too many calls and unannounced visits; affection morphed into the smothering mother it was

I exited the pike with the news lumped in my throat, looking for a place to hide

a roadside stop with a view of farmed fields--the sun too bright

I dialed her number at least thrice, but never completed the call;
the connection would have been dead or dying anyway

in the distance, I saw their carriages:
a procession with the clopping hooves of obedient beasts, the laughter of children, and monogamous men and women who didn't know the meaning of "co-dependency," "neediness," or "smothering"

and eyes that would have stared in disbelief if they saw
the ****** cell phone

there was no power

from my Mumbai hotel I
could see the stream of people
in the narrow street below

a cart carrying the dead listed
and nearly toppled over

the ox pulling it did not stop
dragging the askew carriage along

passersby steered clear of the primitive hearse
knowing it carried the curse, the fever felling the denizens
of this muggy megapolis

a plague harvesting souls
quicker than they could be burned

the Mithi was thick with their ashes,
diluted only by tears of the mourners
who harbored fears they would be next

I was there, a helpless healer;
a doctor turned detective, running
a race to find a cause, a miracle cure

all my potions impotent,
all my staring at slides a lesson
in limitations, ignorance--a discovery
of crawling creatures too miniscule
to be dissected, too beguiling to be
understood

my eyes were tired of looking
at the tiny death moguls and their victims
my ears weary of the entreaties for relief
from suffering

yet I stood and watched, one wagon
after another, carrying carrion for the pyres

I prayed the power would stay off,
for light would have shone on me:
a curious survivor, unworthy of whatever
grace kept me from the heaps of lifeless
limbs bound for the fires of the night

the third day of spring, pear blossoms fall like snowflakes
then disappear in the new grass

this blanket coming green after a russet winter
during which the old man took shovel to earth
to bury her last Retriever

the runt of the litter, yet it grew strong
and outlived her by only a fortnight, after sniffing her dormant beds, lying at the foot of her lawn chair

as if the canine divined where he last saw her:

lounging in the yard, reading Dickinson under early March light,
sipping a mint tea, scratching the pet's ears;

she passed there, under the same trees, winter's survivors
not yet in bloom

though full of budding promise, unrealized, unseen, but there even as they lay her in the ground