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there was a rude boy on my jean jacket. black suit, shades and hat, skanking where orange street met birmingham. two-tone ska a second skin, a way to believe, though unsure why. days on this island with wasted republican frat boys and sorority girls, pompous u.s citizens, northern americanos with trust funds. only white dudes in sight without reagan hair are in the front of the car, a sputtering nondescript, and later pugs, the skinhead in boots and leather below unfiltered sun, unsure if peyote caps or heat is source of glistening blister of a head. an equally overdressed chubby blonde woman at his side who he swears sounds just like janis. on cue, val fills the hotel courtyard where my misfit crew hope for a corner of a floor not coated in puke or recent sex rented by bobcat’s brother’s sigma hate niggas fraternity. her dense wail careens off ten stories like a friday night public address system. so close to another why not join the hollow migration? us, funboy three, avoiding the same people in a different country. tequila, laughter and respect. then border patrol. stinking agave as he checks licenses and cargo space. when he opens the back door, rudy rests beside skinny black sophomore with a flat top. one front pocket open, the other concealing skunk. i consider what dank brick lines the cells, how long i will drink sweat because it tastes better than juarez prison chow. he reaches in the open pocket, returns rude boy to the seat. welcome home, boys. enjoy yourself, he says. it’s later than you think.

I was a traveler in my day a business traveler, territorial in the grassy gaps. I sold bonds to clients hungry for bonds in the boundless sales call door to door among “folks.” It was a job I was born with. I had a heavy sample bag, rubber- banded stack of calling cards and leather binder (embossed) opening upon a vista of lamination, obligation rumination. I furnished a nation to the chemical engineers and wives of Schenectady, New York over coffee, over roast beef and piano, a kingdom, a nation, a principality, landlocked state, aspirational acreage spiritual fallout hideout. I showed a picture of my boy cross-legged in front of a backdrop of a glaciated hanging valley deep in the transaction among handshakes and signatures if it came to it This is my boy, I said Come to me. I was a traveler. Later I inspected the nickel mines near Sudbury telling my boy about the endless sheer black subterranean drop in the cage. I was telling the truth when I knew how to, as I had to as sales required, as stewardship permitted, long before disembodiment. I kept a picture of my boy in front of a cardboard tree and treehouse platform tacked to the upholstered partition above my desk. Once I brought him to the office. He stared at himself. “I had a treehouse then,” he said.

For what I did And did not do And do without In my old age Rue, not rage Against that night We go into, Sets me straight On what to do Before I die— Sit in the shade, Look at the sky

"O 'Melia, my dear, this does everything crown! Who could have supposed I should meet you in Town? And whence such fair garments, such prosperi-ty?" — "O didn't you know I'd been ruined?" said she. — "You left us in tatters, without shoes or socks, Tired of digging potatoes, and spudding up docks; And now you've gay bracelets and bright feathers three!" — "Yes: that's how we dress when we're ruined," said she. — "At home in the barton you said thee' and thou,' And thik oon,' and theäs oon,' and t'other'; but now Your talking quite fits 'ee for high compa-ny!" — "Some polish is gained with one's ruin," said she. — "Your hands were like paws then, your face blue and bleak But now I'm bewitched by your delicate cheek, And your little gloves fit as on any la-dy!" — "We never do work when we're ruined," said she. — "You used to call home-life a hag-ridden dream, And you'd sigh, and you'd sock; but at present you seem To know not of megrims or melancho-ly!" — "True. One's pretty lively when ruined," said she. — "I wish I had feathers, a fine sweeping gown, And a delicate face, and could strut about Town!" — "My dear — a raw country girl, such as you be, Cannot quite expect that. You ain't ruined," said she.

One of them             drops radio into hardhat and spits, Damn it, boys, we won’t need this one. But hell, they had already drilled the charge. In the dynamite’s wake, boulders turn to snow. Men walk through the trees. It’s cool now in here. Quiet enough to hear tracks rust; the Monte Ne line that never whistled through and the summering passengers unstartled by sudden dark, the temperature drop. Stones jut out, gargoyles scabbed with lichen. The steamy eye of an afternoon watches us from either end. We are waylaid by a spell. A stone slithers off or I imagine this. In the pitch I feel the others when they breathe. We are unborn. One of our silhouettes speaks, There’s a camera in the car. Bats opening like orchids. The absence of one of us, unimaginable— our present so intense its tense is aorist. Each of us afraid to leave two men he loves behind.

A spring day oozes through Trastevere. A nun in turquoise sneakers contemplates the stairs. Ragazzi everywhere, the pus in their pimples pushing up like paperwhites in the midday sun. Every hard bulb stirs. The fossilized egg in my chest cracks open against my will. I was so proud not to feel my heart. Waking means being angry. The dead man on the Congo road was missing an ear, which had either been eaten or someone was wearing it around his neck. The dead man looked like this. No, that. Here’s a flock of tourists in matching canvas hats. This year will take from me the hardened person who I longed to be. I am healing by mistake. Rome is also built on ruins.

Stone worn Overgrown Pristine thorns Sheep shorn Tinkling below Roofless walls Rooks overlook I told you so Babbles the brook

where the route of a ship bringing tax grain from the provinces is described where perceived hindering—say, birds congregating on a runway where the first request was for fertilizer and seeds where the instruction—harness these to the benefit of your society where the conscription continued where boards of revenue where basically, everyone had a plant job where preventable diseases rampant where the need is window screens and sewer covers where for the good of the very few and the suffering of a great many

I am gut sad. I am flirting with the green waves, wandering the sand, feeding reflection into the seaweed foam. That Shaker’s moon is up. Crested by corn-colored stars and traced by those witchy scribblers who read the bone-smoke. No wind at all — no flutter for foxglove or elm. There is a church door. In the time when the people of  my hut lived, there was eating and thinking dished out to the poor and the soul-sick in this place. I am in my remembering. By the frame of  the door is a crooked black bench. It is oily with history of the rumps of sages, and the foot-sore who lingered in the storm. I am bent with weeping. This blue dream chucks the salt from me. I remember the walls god-bright with the king’s theology, the slow chorus of  the low bell, the full hymn of  the byre and field. Pathetic hut. Rain-cracked and wind-straddled. Your walls bare-nubbed by chill flagons of ocean spit. The saints are scattered. The high gable is an ivy tangle. The stink of fox is the only swinging incense. There is no stew for this arriving prodigal, no candled bed. My kin lie under the ground of this place. My shape is sloughed with grief. No more red tree between my thighs. My eyes are milk. Rage my pony. My face has earnt the grim mask. My heart a husky gore. But my hand. My hand reaches through this sour air and touches the splendid darkness of my deliverer. Translated from the Irish

When Britain first, at heaven's command, Arose from out the azure main, This was the charter of the land, And guardian angels sung this strain— "Rule, Britannia, rule the waves; Britons never will be slaves." The nations, not so blest as thee, Must in their turns to tyrants fall; While thou shalt flourish great and free, The dread and envy of them all. "Rule, Britannia, rule the waves; Britons never will be slaves." Still more majestic shalt thou rise, More dreadful from each foreign stroke; As the loud blast that tears the skies Serves but to root thy native oak. "Rule, Britannia, rule the waves; Britons never will be slaves." Thee haughty tyrants ne'er shall tame; All their attempts to bend thee down, Will but arouse thy generous flame, But work their woe and thy renown. "Rule, Britannia, rule the waves; Britons never will be slaves." To thee belongs the rural reign; Thy cities shall with commerce shine; All thine shall be the subject main, And every shore it circles thine. "Rule, Britannia, rule the waves; Britons never will be slaves." The Muses, still with freedom found, Shall to thy happy coast repair: Blest isle! with matchless beauty crowned, And manly hearts to guard the fair. "Rule, Britannia, rule the waves; Britons never will be slaves."