july lightning bug
windshield smear
like a memory from kidhood
endless gloaming
never night
remember
the sounds then too

that’s what it felt like
when you touched my hand
when you sipped my beer
in Texas

backwash
bashful bodies
electric and soft
in the night

your smile
the smile of ten thousand
wise red suns
iridescent
showing just for me

i would have called LA and
quit right then
lived under that roof
with you forever
in the dust
asking nothing
of one another and
kissing cuz we couldn’t not

can you recall those lights we saw in the desert
moving like ghosts across the sky
are those lights like our love

constant and true?

in a dream
in a whisper
i heard you say
yes

i heard you say
maybe this house
is that house too

eo

old dog
black tongue
death
I think of you often
Willie
when you ran
open door-spring rain
worms on the walkway
where would you go
???
you left so little
residue
on me

I don’t remember you
friend
but you slept in my bed
comforters warm under your
dog belly
black eyes
we’d wipe the sleep
and when we’d find you
(we always found you)
wet with warpaint
the color of aprilmay
We’d hold you tight
not imagining
a day your temper
would be lost on us forever

weeks and years come
old dog
they don’t stop
it’s been so long since
I really
I mean really
smelled the rain

eo

Did I dream last night? Did I dream of Lydia Cacho again? Did I dream of the desert? Am I in the desert? Are there shadows in my shade? Is there wind in my window? Am I a cactus? Am I a farmer? Does the universe sit on the sun?..The sun sits on the universe?

The universe was pulled back and released.

Moving forward, moving slow, passing stars, passing bars

Motel Motel’your heart, my heart

I’ve stayed in Psychedelic Kazakhstan, concrete bed

Run run

field field

good night Sam Shepard

Peel off your eyelashes and past them to the mirror

NM

it’s been said
that a word will
be read
and a seed
will explode

in ohio
or indiana
or someplace neat
like that
and quaint
like that

mostly front yards
sometimes backyards
occasionally fields and things

wherever a tree
can provide
shade and protection
and where it’s
liable to have a heart
carved into it

only certain words
mind you — not all
have this power

to breathe life
into seeds

it can happen too
when you kiss
someone new

particular souls
have it in ‘em
and both parties must

for the seed to sprout

it can also occur
when you dream
i should say
like the time

you buried the knife
in the schoolyard
and couldn’t
bring yourself
to look behind you

or when you kissed your best friend
on the mouth at the fair and
day turned to night and you
woke up hard

or like when you came upon the
giant washing machine
at dusk on the beach
and you didn’t know why but
you couldn’t step closer
and you didn’t know why
but you knew the machine was death

that one meant
the tree was growing
that one meant
the tree would flourish

eo

wild light
blinding
but you forgot
there was water
and then there wasn’t
you sometimes remember
like in the ocean
where your atoms understand
that’s why you sleep
sound on the sand
warm and unencumbered
as though for a moment
you’re there again
before the wild light

eo

smells like the back of an
old hot blockbuster tape
abandoned
n un-rewound
on the dash of
your mom’s excursion
2001 or 2
no before 9/11
but after your papa died
somewhere in the middle
that summer
that last free summer of
your kidhood
and america’s too
the summer your dad
clipped down the hill on his
rollerblades
steep street
wrong turn
and you thought
there he goes
just like papa
on a cloudless
sunday
his t-shirt
flapping
like a battle flag
forever
in your mind
you thought he’d never
survive
but he endures
and now
on this idle sunday
another cloudless sunday
father’s day
you remember this
suddenly
and you can smell that
blockbuster tape
roasting
from your bed in LA
where you are a man now
approaching 30
father to no one
and oh how
you wish to be
careening down
old blackhawk road
with your old man
again
thirteen
and with thoughts
in your head
as cloudless as the sky
ed ruscha
said that

eo

in the unsetting light
of our love’s last summer
did you sense
the winds of winter
already approaching
did you hear in the long
silences of rote routine
— the slow turning of pages
the small siren which sounds
when your youth is over

eo

i saw you
in Loreto
oldie
goldie
by the water
writing words
in the sand
with your toes
but it wasn’t really you
and the words she wrote
disappeared
with the tide
before i could reach them

eo

from the impossible
immense vista of
geological time

our homes
here on
this earth

are as ephemeral
as cobwebs
wisping
tearing
reaching
receding

in the wind
on a wednesday

and our
memories,
merely
reflections
of porch light
gleaming off
the gossamer

as it
crashes
into
the broom
of a potbellied
lady named
providence

eo

do you ever catch
the hint of
something human
caught in
the glint
of another
creature’s eye
something
meek and humble
within their iris
crying “i know you
brother;
we’re the same”
and do you notice then
just moments after
that that thing you
thought was human
wasn’t really human
at all
but rather a snag
in the thread
of a rare, fine fabric
running through
all creatures
and all things
and that that
beast
sees itself
also
in you

eo