Still not out of hope one day to
see her country … Close now,

Simplistic, domineering,
recapitulating, flesh
wants flesh to last.

This says less about the road, or baths, or loss,
than it does about movement, how still a road

Is it always each color dirty its own way?

I came from life from living I arrived

Nowhere     in the midst of God     in the midst of God

God is a city      in which no one has ever lived

In a deep well I swung a pickax
into packed caliche, so dark I aimed the ax
by feel. My brother leaned back safe

In another parched summer,
Comancheros gone, we rock
on the screened back porch, fanning,

squirrel killer 
predawn snacker 
keeper of a card-table office in the garage 

Nobody lives
above me,

The first time we ever quarreled
You were cutting an onion
In the kitchen of our rented cottage.