Poetry

If a woman hadn’t been out walking her dog,
they might never have found the body
among the miner’s lettuce and jimson weed,
the young nurse may have lain at the base of the creek
invisible to the naked eye for months, years—

She flashed on familiar images:
The crucifixion of James Dean and Sal Mineo among others
For the mutable sins of cruising rough trade
(just a rumor, just a rumor)
As arborescent skeletons sprouted in the abandoned fields

Cruel with guilt, and daring with despair,
the applause of listening senates to command,
they reeled, they set, they crossed, they cleekit,
and then the perilous path was planted.

Elbow grease to help you? No,
I’d rather sell you soap
and say you’re dirty. Flirty semblances
of insecurity flare up
and bite you on the knee

Hook a fish, and she’ll fight for her freedom. 
Remove her from seawater 
and she’s like a person pulled down 
into crushing dark where she’ll thrash for breath.

The cones soften.
The children smile.
It’s always like this:
too sweet to swallow,
too sacred to drop.

Revelation begins with a cry for retribution,
the fourth seal is the rider of death
followed closely, immediately by Hades,
the nightmare of the first three,
the savagery of man slaughtering man.

You can imagine a pastor who is neither young nor old, 
his appearance is similar to a schoolteacher, simple yet sly, 
he knows everyone here, even those not yet born,
he feels a certain weariness from knowing them too well and from having nowhere else to go. 

Someone you once knew and who no longer speaks to you 
is sleeping on your front stoop.  Tiny particles of his body 
 
blow off in the wind and tiny particles of his body constantly 
blow back.  He seems in no hurry to leave, no hurry to stay.