i pretend the billboards
of kigali are your face
so that when i look at them
i can feel your honest smile
and your sheen black eyes.

i pretend the crescent moon
is the soft curve of your heart
so that i can count  on every
single part of it at the night
to feel your emotions.

i pretend the flowers
in my garden are your clothes,
so that i can feel the pleasant
fragrance of your perfume
when i water them.


i pretend the rhymes of your poems
are your voice
so that i can feel every single
sound of it's cheesy tone
when i read 'em

Walking the ruts on the Historic
Santiam Wagon Trail, I split
the stories of sky scraping
Douglas firs.  Alders and vine maple shed
their leafy weight of early Fall.

The brown state attraction sign boasts
a sincere Conestoga.   A sturdy team
in a purposeful westward arch.  What
benign heroic ambition.  Divine inevitability.

Small pox.
Wounded Knee.
Boarding schools.

I wonder how the sign sits in the eyes
of a Kalapooya walking these woods.  Or
a Nez Perce or Siletz?

Like a ******* in Tel Aviv?  A machete
in Kigali?

But the Siletz don’t have an air force
or UN peace keeping troops.