rio means river
and everyone’s swimming
grande style
a syringe
in a pocket
a case
of paraphernalia
a parade
of coke whores
a town with ground-down
teeth and the boredom
of everyday hassle
only it’s slow
a self image
everyone hates
and jumps in
for the drown
or the mirage
of bigger towns
bigger dreams
but never
a bigger state
what happens
to the boys
who fall
for texas girls?
heaven
or the fake out
turnaround
of escape?
check the oil
since anywhere’s
a full day’s drive
and tomorrow?
reason enough
to get away
from here
did we come here
to die?
the trains like
church bells:
steady, on time,
relentless
so what’s left?
the mesa?
hell, it’s a bandit
spectacular
of acting out
a wild west show
200 years old
and mexico?
if we cross the line
we’re not coming back
like steve mcqueen
and ali mcgraw
in a jim thompson novel
finally a couple lives
and keeps the cash
but our fate
is not locked up
somewhere else
since
a telegram
will one day
slip over the border
and wait on
an empty room
Lawrence Welsh's fourth book of poetry, Believing in Bonfires, was published by Pitchfork Press in Austin, Texas, in 2003. Lawrence Welsh's work has appeared or is forthcoming in more than 150 journals, magazines and anthologies, including The Louisiana Review, Hawaii Review, The Wormwood Review, Nexus, Chiron Review, Poetry Motel, Poetry Now, Pearl, Bogg, Flipside, Whole Notes and the book Das Ist Alles--Charles Bukowski Recollected. Welsh directs the Poetry Jam Project at El Paso Community College, where he teaches writing and literature. The poems published are from the book Rusted Steel and Bordertown Starts, 1999, Sundance Press.