Naming Rights For Fires
:: We almost lived here once,
a long time ago ::
:: Datura dripping night scent ::
:: Open-skinned visions
of bare branches & wires ::
:: Spring quince flowering
plum, cherry pear trees with the fruit bred out of them ::
:: Remember the gray cold green
of western waves ::
:: Palms snapped from the top ::
:: We built a shelter of our skin; there was nothing to prevent us from burning ::
::What went up in the blaze
nests lined with willow cotton, deer hair vole fur
feathers & fine grass ::
a long time ago ::
:: Datura dripping night scent ::
:: Open-skinned visions
of bare branches & wires ::
:: Spring quince flowering
plum, cherry pear trees with the fruit bred out of them ::
:: Remember the gray cold green
of western waves ::
:: Palms snapped from the top ::
:: We built a shelter of our skin; there was nothing to prevent us from burning ::
::What went up in the blaze
nests lined with willow cotton, deer hair vole fur
feathers & fine grass ::
After the Funeral
“But I am done with apple-picking now.”
Robert Frost
My car heads north overfull
with histories and ghosts.
I start to dream of what I can’t.
(You don’t know you smell like cigarettes,
until you leave the place of cigarettes.)
But I am done with phantoms now.
Contained, skimming
the tindered valley, crops,
industry of agriculture overwhelmingly
lined up. Remarkably elegant.
The insults I unloaded
lost their ache in the glare
of sun through glass.
But I am overtired
from the conflict I desired.
She gave me a ring. I picked out the gems
like silver from teeth.
Remade and hid them, sold the gold.
I told her orange was the color of madness
whenever she wore orange.
Buttonwillow, Coalinga,
ammonia stench of stockyard,
landscape screechingly the same.
Follow the magnetic north,
straw-gold pathway.
In the southern mountains, ocotillos
hold their liquid memory.
Robert Frost
My car heads north overfull
with histories and ghosts.
I start to dream of what I can’t.
(You don’t know you smell like cigarettes,
until you leave the place of cigarettes.)
But I am done with phantoms now.
Contained, skimming
the tindered valley, crops,
industry of agriculture overwhelmingly
lined up. Remarkably elegant.
The insults I unloaded
lost their ache in the glare
of sun through glass.
But I am overtired
from the conflict I desired.
She gave me a ring. I picked out the gems
like silver from teeth.
Remade and hid them, sold the gold.
I told her orange was the color of madness
whenever she wore orange.
Buttonwillow, Coalinga,
ammonia stench of stockyard,
landscape screechingly the same.
Follow the magnetic north,
straw-gold pathway.
In the southern mountains, ocotillos
hold their liquid memory.