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Sprinting across the freeway just ahead of them having set his left foot down directly onto the pavement from the ledge of the cement divide and edging his other leg forward deliberately—caught the way sports pages show an athlete with muscles condensed in the effort of crossing through a particular space—and then she sees the cars coming towards him giving off that early morning shine across their hoods almost colorless but precipitous in the four-lane parallel rush of metal and cannot tell if any driver straining into the distance further ahead has seen him or possibly has caught that glint off the long black flashlight he appears to carry with its up-beam turned on full and faintly visible due to the angle of early sun falling over the midwestern plains fanning out in every direction away from the sudden view of the airport hub’s acclaimed architectural design. She sees the brief alignment of his body methodically finding its way across the freeway lanes blue baseball cap fit snugly over his head to just above the hairline where now dusky skin of his neck breaks into the picture.He’s made it halfway, she thinks, but she can’t stop the cars rushing towards him even as he scans with concentration the worn lanes for the thing he’s lost as if he’s walking through the dark and shining his flashlight wherever the object might have landed, his right knee   still lifting purposefully upward and forward. — for C.W.

The best memory is not so firm as faded ink. —Chinese Proverb The body was one thing we always had in common, even when between us a continent unfolded. Eric says, We scattered his ashes beneath the Japanese maple here behind the house. No ceremony, as you wished, but this... What you wanted from me was complex and simple, both. Once you asked for more than I had to give. I live with this; call it regret. Your hands bloom in the intaglioed scrawl, creased onion skin tattooed with garnet stamps from Pietrasanta, a sifting of marble dust...Images: chiseled jut of jaw, cheek, bridge of nose—recall each granite face rising from New Hampshire dirt upon which faltering, you last stepped. In 1729, long before either of us came to be, Reiner Ottens dragged his fine tip across a smooth sheet:Globi Coelestis in Tabulas Planas Redacti Pars III. Bright beings— lobster, serpent, bison, dove bearing the requisite sprig—swirl and writhe over lines that pin distance and story to time. Spectral creatures that we are, connecting dots to chart our ways....If only I could wrap the whole plane back into its ball. Without your body in it, this world's gone flat. (Jack Marshall, 1932-2009)

1996 i. here: our forsaken home mesa breaks desert dialing curve of mountain territory of anthropology of the outlaw where you taught me how to shoot that .22 real good rifle butt steadied against the shoulder socket a wild pulsing third arm postures of stillness and reserve practiced cunning of the predator in the end         shattered bottles among cowering piñones here: the natives have never been safe ii. curious sentimental boy intent on the romance of expedition clever cynical woman intent on the Romantic trope mi cielo mi mar mi luna mi tierra language of Spanish occupation diligent engineers we divide and enter mapping for future travels the sheets marked, desk cluttered: pencil shavings graphs incomplete stanzas metaphors and equations of isolated fixed points like Malinches we are left harboring the remains of one another's labor iii. la migra       your mind skilled at expulsion vigilant surveillance those refused entry interest me those forced to settle elsewhere ours is a patrolled encounter my mind is what interests you creases of cerebrum     electric streams coursing through these fissures a landscape ripe for excavation you are brother to Isabella in devices and commands always the agenda the missionary plans and like the others you will insist on exile and I am no Circe no magical powers no victim of narrative just a woman with these few words a woman who has peered through the barrel of a loaded gun leaving nothing intact

Renege on the rock! Smash the oppressor cave! Sashay out onto the floor! Scorn the cornices— see, from the beard of drunk Silenus from the unique uproar of his blood the wine dribble into his genitals! Spit on the obsession with pillars: ancient rheumatic hands quake toward gray skies. Bring down the temple by the yearning of your knees twitching with dance. Spill, spread, unpetal, bleed your soft flowers through great wounds. Dove-hauled Venus girds her loins with roses— see the summer’s last puff of blue drift on seas of asters to distant pine-brown coasts; see this final hour of our mendacious southern happiness held aloft.

I am not your mother, I will not be moved by the grief or gratitude of men who weep like orphans at my door. I am not a church. I do not answer prayers but I never turn them down. Come in and kneel or sit or stand, the burden of your weight won't lessen no matter the length of your admission. Tell me anything you want, I have to listen but don't expect me to respond when you tell me you have lost your job or that your wife has found another love or that your children took their laughter to another town. You feel alone and empty? Color me surprised! I didn't notice they were gone. Despite the row of faces pinned like medals to my walls, I didn't earn them. The scratches on the wood are not my scars. If there's a smell of spices in the air blame the trickery of kitchens or your sad addiction to the yesterdays that never keep no matter how much you believe they will. I am not a time capsule. I do not value pithy things like locks of hair and milk teeth and ticket stubs and promise rings—mere particles of dust I'd blow out to the street if I could sneeze. Take your high school jersey and your woman's wedding dress away from me. Sentimental hoarding bothers me. So off with you, old couch that cries in coins as it gets dragged out to the porch. Farewell, cold bed that breaks its bones in protest to eviction or foreclosure or whatever launched this grim parade of exits. I am not a pet. I do not feel abandonment. Sometimes I don't even see you come or go or stay behind. My windows are your eyes not mine. If you should die inside me I'll leave it up to you to tell the neighbors. Shut the heaters off I do not fear the cold. I'm not the one who shrinks into the corner of the floor because whatever made you think this was a home with warmth isn't here to sweet-talk anymore. Don't look at me that way, I'm not to blame. I granted nothing to the immigrant or exile that I didn't give a bordercrosser or a native born. I am not a prize or a wish come true. I am not a fairytale castle. Though I used to be, in some distant land inhabited by dreamers now extinct. Who knows what happened there? In any case, good riddance, grotesque fantasy and mirth. So long, wall-to-wall disguise in vulgar suede and chintz. Take care, you fool, and don't forget that I am just a house, a structure without soul for those whose patron saints are longing and despair.

A Ballad of the Republic, Sung in the Year 1888 The outlook wasn’t brilliant for the Mudville nine that day; The score stood four to two with but one inning more to play. And then when Cooney died at first, and Barrows did the same, A sickly silence fell upon the patrons of the game. A straggling few got up to go in deep despair. The rest Clung to that hope which springs eternal in the human breast; They thought if only Casey could but get a whack at that— We’d put up even money now with Casey at the bat. But Flynn preceded Casey, as did also Jimmy Blake, And the former was a lulu and the latter was a cake; So upon that stricken multitude grim melancholy sat, For there seemed but little chance of Casey’s getting to the bat. But Flynn let drive a single, to the wonderment of all, And Blake, the much despised, tore the cover off the ball; And when the dust had lifted, and men saw what had occurred, There was Jimmy safe at second and Flynn a-hugging third. Then from 5,000 throats and more there rose a lusty yell; It rumbled through the valley, it rattled in the dell; It knocked upon the mountain and recoiled upon the flat, For Casey, mighty Casey, was advancing to the bat. There was ease in Casey’s manner as he stepped into his place; There was pride in Casey’s bearing and a smile on Casey’s face. And when, responding to the cheers, he lightly doffed his hat, No stranger in the crowd could doubt ’twas Casey at the bat. Ten thousand eyes were on him as he rubbed his hands with dirt; Five thousand tongues applauded when he wiped them on his shirt. Then while the writhing pitcher ground the ball into his hip, Defiance gleamed in Casey’s eye, a sneer curled Casey’s lip. And now the leather-covered sphere came hurtling through the air, And Casey stood a-watching it in haughty grandeur there. Close by the sturdy batsman the ball unheeded sped— “That ain’t my style,” said Casey. “Strike one,” the umpire said. From the benches, black with people, there went up a muffled roar, Like the beating of the storm-waves on a stern and distant shore. “Kill him! Kill the umpire!” shouted some one on the stand; And it’s likely they’d have killed him had not Casey raised his hand. With a smile of Christian charity great Casey’s visage shone; He stilled the rising tumult; he bade the game go on; He signaled to the pitcher, and once more the spheroid flew; But Casey still ignored it, and the umpire said, “Strike two.” “Fraud!” cried the maddened thousands, and echo answered fraud; But one scornful look from Casey and the audience was awed. They saw his face grow stern and cold, they saw his muscles strain, And they knew that Casey wouldn’t let that ball go by again. The sneer is gone from Casey’s lip, his teeth are clinched in hate; He pounds with cruel violence his bat upon the plate. And now the pitcher holds the ball, and now he lets it go, And now the air is shattered by the force of Casey’s blow. Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright; The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light, And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout; But there is no joy in Mudville—mighty Casey has struck out.

This isn't my dream-job. As a young sheet of steel and plastic I dreamt of being melted down into a dancer's pole in Vegas. I wanted a woman in a headdress glossy as a gossamer to wrap her lithe limbs around me. I wanted to be strewn in lights, smell her powdery perfume. Instead I'm a squat box crouched behind the counter, noticed only if someone robs me. I'm touched all day, but never caressed. Listen: somewhere gold tokens spew from slots. I want to drink space-alien-dyed martinis on black leather sectional couches. Watch tipsy women with acid- washed jeans and teased hair dreamily press their faces against slot machines while people treat currency carelessly as spit in the wind. I'm everywhere you look, ubiquitous and ignored. I'm the container of your dreams that tossed aside my own. I've kept my clean, sleek lines but you never say a thing. Feed me, feed me with the only love we know.

My mind is shuffling its deck tonight, slipping one card over another, letting them all fall together at the corners; the random hand of memory is dealing from the bottom of the pack. First: a bearded man emptying the dragon kiln, then a woman whistling, her face turned away as she opens the oven. Next: a big cat, six toes on each paw, climbing up the yardpole. Last: a pair of workhorses circling a tree until they grind themselves to dust. There is no one home in the world tonight. Everyone is out of range. The cradles are empty, the boughs broken down. Trees go helter-skelter and the wheel is creaking on its shaft. Hit me, I say to the dealer. Hit me again.

To me, one silly task is like another. I bare the shambling tricks of lust and pride. This flesh will never give a child its mother,— Song, like a wing, tears through my breast, my side, And madness chooses out my voice again, Again. I am the chosen no hand saves: The shrieking heaven lifted over men, Not the dumb earth, wherein they set their graves.

O Hymen king. Hymen, O Hymen king, what bitter thing is this? what shaft, tearing my heart? what scar, what light, what fire searing my eye-balls and my eyes with flame? nameless, O spoken name, king, lord, speak blameless Hymen. Why do you blind my eyes? why do you dart and pulse till all the dark is home, then find my soul and ruthless draw it back? scaling the scaleless, opening the dark? speak, nameless, power and might; when will you leave me quite? when will you break my wings or leave them utterly free to scale heaven endlessly? A bitter, broken thing, my heart, O Hymen lord, yet neither drought nor sword baffles men quite, why must they feign to fear my virgin glance? feigned utterly or real why do they shrink? my trance frightens them, breaks the dance, empties the market-place; if I but pass they fall back, frantically; must always people mock? unless they shrink and reel as in the temple at your uttered will. O Hymen king, lord, greatest, power, might, look for my face is dark, burnt with your light, your fire, O Hymen lord; is there none left can equal me in ecstasy, desire? is there none left can bear with me the kiss of your white fire? is there not one, Phrygian or frenzied Greek, poet, song-swept, or bard, one meet to take from me this bitter power of song, one fit to speak, Hymen, your praises, lord? May I not wed as you have wed? may it not break, beauty, from out my hands, my head, my feet? may Love not lie beside me till his heat burn me to ash? may he not comfort me, then, spent of all that fire and heat, still, ashen-white and cool as the wet laurels, white, before your feet step on the mountain-slope, before your fiery hand lift up the mantle covering flower and land, as a man lifts, O Hymen, from his bride, (cowering with woman eyes,) the veil? O Hymen lord, be kind.