I can’t give you forever, forever is a long time. I can give you tonight, and only tonight can be forever.

our separation from each other and each world
words that roll around under a split worth and
a time to pull across divides, to move with
wheels and a child on each arm.

-R.M.
Missoula Saturday Market
6/15

Carlos, I wish I could have save you. I had
No choice but to leave you behind
For fortune to slid your throat, wrap
You in a shroud and throw you
In the sea.

Those near me, the ones who
Circled my bed in my sleep, arranged
A procession in honor of my enemies.
You see, I finally defeated my enemies
Near the hills of Palatki, swept them
Off my path, crushed them, burned them,
Turned them into vessels where I kept
Orchids and gardenias.

And I remembered you as I lay
Waiting, victorious, the stare of those who loved me
Binding me to their tomb. I remembered
Your words of long ago before we
Conquered beautiful savages,
Before our tanned skin glistened like diamonds on the
Battlefield beaches awashed with rum,
Magic, and the tiny teeth of miniture calaveras,
Your simple words, “My brother”
Not of blood or bones, not even of love,
But of a friendship that sprouted like corn
Amid fields not yet believed by woken eyes.

As I lay here, dying among my treasures,
I remember you as my true brother,
I imagine your empty house
Ransacked, your vast fields plundered, and
Your name forgotten among the many names
Of former warriors who once appeared in the sun and
Whose memory sunlight itself slowly burns away.

I question
Why I find you
Invigorating
Like warm summer rain or
Your long hair
Covering my face

The cruelest month, so they say, in a mountain city, a wife left to fend for herself while the husband alone sips a sazerak where the wine is poor and the women sit tight and bound, their hair like razors. A cruel month
it is, after a night of love-making husband wipes his wife’s blood off into the toilet, three times, until there is none left. The next day blue bacopas, white petunias, mandarin calibrachoas splatter the rainbow windows facing south like a suicide bomber’s teeth burnt into the fabric of his own heaven. Spring eternal, fingers in her mouth caressing words that won’t reach his ear. Cruel month, bastard month, son-of-a-bitch month, drunken month, stroke-my-soft-erection month, because next month we begin anew.

I went to a parade
on the morning
after a panic attack
so many faces
hid behind corners
ready to applause and to cheer,
floats of souls passed by
heading towards a narrow bridge
and disappearing beyond

I asked myself if I
should join the crowd
or if I should breathe?
should I file in line
for this parade?
paint my face? wear a funny hat?
wave and snap a picture?

If I joined the parade, I would parade naked
down the middle of main street,
let all my limbs hang out at my sides
I would reveal to you my inpenetrable smile,
my sharp fangs gleaming in this excuse for a sun
the fur of my tail scooping the sweets you
throw at my stomping feet
with every step I would make the beads
around your neck tremble
you would cover the eyes of your children
so that this perversion should not corrupt them
and you would take my picture,
I would pose for you,
you would look at me later
when you are settled under the sheets of your bed
with the lights turned off
and you see me on the screen of your phone,
the breathing of the one next to you
becoming predictable,
insulated,
you would see me as I now am,
as I had become after a night
of terror
you would admire the shape of my loins
like the obtrusive weapon of a neanderthal
and as you fall asleep I would sneak through
the window of your room,
march down your dreams
panic holding on to you like it had strangled me
and together we would consumate our dread,
cleave ourselves of all assurances
take hold of each others thighs in each others hands,
our thrusts sweaty and distressed,
and I would say to you
‘there is no other choice than to put your fear on parade’

Today I saw a movie about Hemingway and it made me want to go visit his grave. I also saw a movie about Arizona and it made me want to return to Prescott. I searched Prescott on Google Maps and saw the courthouse, the bar, the coffee shop, and the bookstore where I used to hang out. I saw the house where I lived, where I stood on the rock and prayed, where I used to hear the pack of coyotes running at night, they would get louder and louder as they got closer and then I could hear their cries outside my window and then, suddenly, they were gone as if nothing. I saw myself walking the Prescott streets at night, saw the beautiful stars as I held a rock in hand. I saw the faces of the people I met in those days, like the day I let them sleep on my floor, or how I slept on their couch, how I smoked from their pipes and how found them making love in the dark. I saw all this. Now I sit on this couch in the North, hearing the clashes in the train yard across my street. The coyotes have moved on and now all that is left is the sound of trains outside my window. I see everything.