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driving into the storm
or away from the burning house
moving
which is the important thing
seventy five miles an hour
past dead trees
rising up out of black water
past your father's ghost
past his bones or his ashes
and with your children asleep
in the back seat
with nothing but static on the radio
exit six fading and
number seven coming up fast
a pile of stones
by the side of the road that i
called home for four years
a young woman waking up naked and
still half-drunk
on a stranger's back porch
all of these pointless stories
that fill in the minutes and hours
that make up my life
kay sage's suicide
followed by rothko's
and then the one of a man i know
the fact that i see him briefly
that morning
say hello like i always do
in a well-lit hallway
and then eight hours later he
pulls the trigger
and route 20 becomes route 63
and i forget where it is
i'm going
but not why
i think about a woman who told me
that poetry is written to
reflect life
and what i want to tell her is that
she's wrong
what i want to tell her is that
it's an attempt
to build one from smoke and dust
an act of desperation
not creation
and what i want to tell her
is that faith should never be
confused with religion
that words should never
be mistaken for communication
turn your back on whoever it is
you love the most
and you'll see what i mean
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she dreams the walls are water
and she dreams the sun is god
wakes up to the sound of rain
and turns to me
says she believes in ghosts
believes in salvation
and the children are crying in
the streets of fatima
and on the outskirts of juarez
they are calling for their mothers
as the sand fills their mouths
they are drowning in the earth
and she says they will all
enter the kingdom
says the raped will be made clean
and there is a man with
bright yellow gloves who
agrees with none of this and
what he talks about instead is
the need to punish
the feel of warm flesh
and of cold
and you can laugh
when he hangs himself and
you can dance but
you can never make the
butchered whole again
you can never rewrite the ending
once the story's finished
there are worse things
to be than afraid
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