MY LIFE AS AN EDGE OF THE LAWLESS FRONTIER
I'd rather hoped a broken sleep would blend
the shallow river, deliver news from home.
Snow clung to my sides. I didn't think of John
Wayne but of John Wayne on fire, how fast
the family grows while strangers resemble
two sticks rubbed together, a shrug shoulder
where the hangmen gather. Their presence
veils the room where I drank my first martini,
the west coast, but JT is clear as ever: he sat
on the porch & smoked, we made hay. I tell
these half-truths that are sometimes false.
He raises his arm to say goodbye & the rest
of the song is anchored in a mended fence,
the rings a saw might teethe. Unless you count
the sound, I'm very much missing. Skiffs
run aground on the opposite shore, my life
was right there. I didn't quite see it in flame.
MY LIFE AS A PETITIONED LETTER OF VENTRILOQUY
No one's aboard the 8:14 but Gustave, aglow
in corridors as an arrow's head & sheath, troubadour
on the iron rail from Chicago, savior who restores
my perch between the stampede & flooded chateau
where we first met. These moorings ease adagio,
so I'm writing to ask for money, the slivered oar
you shaved in memory, split from sycamore,
sanded & notched, that voice from the gallows
to a grove of empty seats. Is that me, Gustave,
or someone playing the part of a rue, monocle
inching sideways on a wooden horse, the address
trained in a voice of yours truly? There's salve
inside the hangman's gloves, his nod then a signal,
the hand who imitates my spine, my last request.
MY LIFE AS A QUESTION PURLED IN MEMORY
was the one I wanted most, lengthened
& swung like a sickle over the sunken roof
of your house. You thought I knew more
than I thought I did, the London Bridge,
impression of the negative I left in a book
under the Belfort, where I did or didn't
light a cigarette, measure the mute shapes
of a workman's shovel, ice rinks left to thaw.
We spoke of vague empires, oranges spilled
from a dome's shadow, then wasteland,
your mother beaten in a trough. Imitation
of a famous painting, I walked down the street,
smell of diced onions, found a street back
& instructions for supper: hands in water,
a shirt simmered red before a dozen guests
side by side at the table where I play host,
guess the spread & rank from the deck
of nude diamonds. You're the Lone Ranger,
but not as alone as you think. You refuse
the glittered stirrup, jack the consequence
for a password at the gate. I so wanted
the broken spine, uninvited, Cromwell's
head impaled in the Arizona dusk. You feel
afraid to feel, a leaning tower, or is that me?
The texture of fleece is bare & almost dry.