To live and die in Lynchburg,
Mad Jack sang his song as he
waved a bloody shirt.

A little girl, a grandchild, was crying. Lois liked the tribute. She wished more of the adults who went up to the casket were teary.

I’d heard about packs of dogs that run through the valley every few years, but I’ve never seen them. I figured it was just an old story.

El Rio

Had it not been for her long black hair you could not have said if she were a boy or a girl standing there, knee deep, feet wide apart in the Rio Hule. She was naked, except for her once lime green shorts, which were now faded to pistachio.

CANOEING ON SWAN RIVER

Here, movement is a breath this side of calm.
The canoe requires nothing of us
but to lull it into current,
a lazy ripple distant from the pine-drenched bank.

Then I might break…  

& things ring abstract and constructed on this voyage, making me wonder more than ever if I do create my reality after all.

I was fourteen that summer and told it was a sin to touch it…

I saw my first dead person when I was seventeen.

Slowly, we ventured out in our Airstream trailer, the silvery hull a mirror of America…

When are things ever perfect?

I notice the people with missing teeth and the women with makeup that’s too much but not enough to cover the bruises. I notice the limpers and the lispers, I see the valet with the mullet hauling the elderly patron aftward from the back of her sedan toward the entrance of the restaurant.

In retaliation for my abandonment, I liberated my grandmother’s beloved parakeets from their cage on the balcony. I watched as they fluttered onto the leafy branches of the cottonwood tree across the street, jealous of their ability to go anyplace they liked.

She always sat by herself,

The head judge summons me to a bunker-like lounge, reminding me that Oberstdorf was once a Wehrmacht training ground.

Well, that’s the million dollar question, right?

I’m panicking.
My heart is beating out of my chest.
I’m thinking of TRAYVON,
AHMAUD,
TAMIR,
MIKE.

I hope I’m not being intrusive when I ask this, but why were you crying? I know I was a stranger and who would want to air their grievances like so much drying laundry, to a stranger?

Oh. Pipped pea pod. Lately lemon. Now, apple. Next, you will be avocado if we get that far.

I once was encouraged to build a place
that would hold every idea
I needed to retrieve
Something elephantine
that would stand
for ages