If I had fur
I’d at least be soft
to the touch
even if there was still
broken glass and shrapnel
under my skin

Caressing
would be ever
an option
as it is not now
Cuddling
would be
accessible
as it is not now

But I have no fur
I’ve rolled and rolled and rolled
in so many sharps
you can’t see my skin
I am not
easily lovable 
cannot be held 

If I seek fur
now it’s only by
the only way I know
hunting
killing and skinning
bullet and knife
and blood spent
in the search for a warmer
hide

but no one loves
the hunter
who comes home soaked in blood
no matter
how soft he now appears

so why bother
live instead spined and ragged
with cuts and scars
and if no one comes to stroke me
all for the good 

You’ve got
the happy house
I’ve got the shed in back
the one that’s out of sight

I’m the bullet
you need to chamber
the one you’re afraid to load
I’m your dog in the fight 

Call me menthol eyedrops
so I can clear your sight
It’s gonna hurt
but I will make you see cold

I let them steal my warmth
so they’d leave yours alone
Call me crazy, un-patriotic
I was born to be rolled

but I can take it —
I do the wet work so you
don’t have to — 
God loves drunks, fools, and me

when I’m the roar from your gut
The handyman of rage and impotence
transformed into drill sergeant
shock trooper, born free,

agent at the iron gates
of thieves and cutthroats
You get the happy house
I get the shed out back —

no one wants to live here with me
on the dirt floor and the thorn bed
under the sheets you discarded
your dinner candles down to their last wax

your crusts of bread and your graywater
You may not come out to say hi too often
but let something go wrong and here you are
not quite begging me but the message is clear

You want me to be the bullet in your chamber
You don’t like what you see with your freezing eyes
You’re scrambling for a dark foothold
The steps are slippery and you hate being here

Cut it short
Get back in the house
and light a good fire
I’ll be back in a second

shiny and slick
Dim and brutal
As nice as a good chef’s knife
used in a way you hadn’t reckoned

but knew was necessary
And when you ask me if I’m happy
Or if I’ve done the all-American thing
and at least pursued happiness as I wished

I’ll look at your house and that big fire
before I turn on my heel and go to my shack
You don’t get to ask that
You don’t get to know what I yearn for, what I’ve missed

by knowing that I was meant for this —
you in the happy house, me out back
You safe and sound, me the spent shell in the chamber
with cold eyes and chattering regret

that sounds like a bass guitar and snapping percussion
like the knots blowing up in your fireplace
like the sound of your feet hitting the floor
after each pop and report from the ashes you lit

I’m your spent shot and your guttering candle
Your easy to call on and hard to reject
Your cousin, your brother, your dirty old uncle
in the shack where you send me when you try to forget

Afterward, when I’ve grown soft
and lie back intact but somehow torn,
waiting for the stitching of sleep
to begin,

I let the wind into me
upon drifting off and it blows
across all my thoughts, my decisions
large and small, stirring them, letting them

fall back not quite where they were
but close enough, shifting them just so
I can tell they’ve been moved, letting me know
I’m alright, nothing’s so out of place

it can’t be set right, or is in fact right
as it is, yet I can tell they’ve moved
and thus reconsider them, not regretting
anything but seeing them again.

That’s the gift of
afterward: it lets you know
you’ve been moved but are safe,
and falling asleep is not a terror

as it is most nights, but a comfort.

These words came to me: 

hill walker,
the stoned remarkable,
the pathbreaker,
charred leader,
dog-faithful hanger-on,
a cramp in the morality,
egg of frightful dawn.

What fragile threads
to pull!
I set myself to pulling them,
to seeing what came loose,
spent some hours there —

and when I was done,
I said to myself,

oh, 
what they let us get away with
in the name of art.
The number of years
they don’t care if we waste,
as long as they don’t have to do it.

What we get away with
must be something
they don’t mind being stolen.
Must be something they’ve forgotten the map to,
something they don’t even know is gone,

something
they need us
to steal
and make useful.

1.
Eating pretty decent gelato in Albuquerque —
eh,
the less said of that,
the better.  Cultural dissonance
is so 
done.

2.
Together today in Taos
and we’re staring surprised 
at a price tag
on an otherwise empty
white gallery wall.

It names artist, and medium, and size, and 
also the name of the piece: “Triptych.”
It apparently cost someone
7500 dollars
to take it away.

“What’s the art here now? Why leave us
with the tag?” you say.  
“Is this really just an empty wall?
If I hung just this tag
on my wall, my empty wall,
would that be art,
what they call found art?”

3.
Having gone on alone, God,
I lay me down
to be surprised:
awake in Grants at 10 PM,
jumping up to kneel and pray for a rug
of artificial chinchilla
chest hair. I will hang
jacla strands of perfect coral
and turquoise upon the ash gray fur
and feel like I’ve done something
unexpected.  Thank you, Lord,
in advance, for that gift.

4.
I’ve just seen five old guys
in the streets of Gallup today
who have gray chest hair as thick 
as my chinchilla rug,
and they’ve all got on
big bolos

that slap their fur as they strut.

Meekly, I put my jacla
in my pocket and button my shirt
as I answer a passerby’s question: 

No, ma’am, I don’t know
where that is.
I’m not from here.

5.
Staring off across Socorro
toward the Jornada de Muerte.
That’s my next road.
I don’t know what I expect to see.
I turn left and drive.
When I come through the rolling hills,
past the flash flood danger signs,
and into the Valley of Fire, 
a black spill spiked with green
covering obvious miles of the desert,
it’s as I could not have expected:
almost a bit of Hawaii dropped here,
and so close to the gypsum bleach dunes
of White Sands, so close
to the radioactive heart of Trinity Site…

6.
Wanting to see 
what I did not expect to see —

that’s why I’m here in the scrub
above the mouth of Carlsbad Cavern
instead of being
in the cave
with everyone else. 

I’m seated 
under a ten foot tall tree
staring at lizards
darting around 
under yellow flowers
that grow close to the hot sand.  

It’s 102 degrees
above zero
and this is the only thin shade around
so I’m monopolizing it,
though the lizards
don’t seem to mind.

The ranger who pointed it out to me
as the tallest tree on the mountain
laughed and called me a “tree snob”
when I scoffed at the word “tree” to describe it.
I guess that’s fair enough,
though now
I’m thrilled to have found it,
to have had it 
given to me
here where I expected to be
underground instead.  

Why I prefer it, 
I don’t know — maybe because 
I’m alone
and not with the crowds descending;
maybe because it’s not
what I expected to see.

more or less
man?  

heart lifter or
tongue depressor?  

jalapeno or
bland little pat of white
butter on a restaurant
dinner roll?  

the machine
or the slick under its wheels? 

I have two hands: one left hand
and one right.  I can’t hold
my steering wheel steady
unless I use both.  I
overcorrect otherwise
and do that often.  that’s
my business, my job.
swerving.  I’m your
typical out of control
puzzler and your finger
thrown up at me
is top fuel.  

so, severe problem or
lovable scamp? big mess
or inner child haunting
the old frame? moth
or flame?  cheer
or riot rumble?

give me a place to stand
and I’ll move the earth
a bit, not much, not so much
that I’m in trouble with God
but a lot of folks will piss
moans in the dirt.  watch me
giggle.  watch me
point and laugh.  watch me
do a double turn and be
as upset as I can be
that I did this to them.

my name
or my game? rep
or tarnish? care
or foolish disregard?
ignorant
or calculated?  conscious
or mystified?
deliberate or bewildering?
set of pointless questions
or an answer? 

see if you can tell.

then
please,
do tell.

don’t we love to talk
about what explosions we were
how we flared rose and tumbled
leaving the grave earth
for our moments

then coming back hard into her
broken
the breath sheared out of us
unashamed
unapologetic

what fools we are
to think
those were our best days
common little shits
that we were

nothing we did
had never been done
nothing we did was anything more
than what millions
of other explosions were doing

all those craters look alike
from forty years out
and I’m not sure the earth forgives us
but we love to talk
about colors and sounds

though we never speak
of the shaking and breaking
of those who never came up from those holes
we’d put so proudly into
the landscape

(and refuse to admit
even to ourselves
and even today
that a lot of the music
sucked)

how many settled to earth
after their blasts
and did the expected
conforming
while pretending otherwise

how many settled to earth
as ash
dead enough to never trouble
anything again
except when we mention them

like tonight
when over Scotch and kind bud
their names came up
and we felt that sneaky envy
for those who never became — this

On the front step
missing you. 

I’ll know
when I’ve missed you enough:
a turtle
will sprint from the backyard
to the front and skid
to a stop in front of me.

Or there will be
pink lightning
in the far edge of the sky,
and the thunder will sound
a high C.

Or else
I’ll just stop missing you
and my air will vanish
from within me.