Jesus bounces on the dashboard over cholla and yucca.
Oil wells like monstrous praying mantis bow and rise,
bow and, east of Albuquerque black and white buntings
gather in the ditches, shred seeds from tumbleweeds
caught in barbed-wire while Jesus stays, arms
outstretched, his face faded by sun.
Beards black with dried blood and soil. A month's work
and the ammunition spent. Pelts stacked on baseboards,
tanned by sun, stiff as bloodied boots. Pink bodies,
bloating, whitening, each one a mound, and that endless
prairie with endless mounds. Maggots in the folds of
their sleeves. Back in town, cash on the bar. It takes a
special breed of prostitute, a strong whiskey.
Yesterday Rossetti buried his wife with a sheath of
unpublished poems. Today carpenter ants mate. They dance
as only they do. And tomorrow the flight will consume
him. The slow decay of each day. The skies tear open,
green and yellow, a quick shift of wind. Hail the size
of apples. A shovel leans in the corner.
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