Will was drawn to that spot
spirits or not, something-body pulled him there
like a mystic magnet that attracts flesh

and flesh he found in that grove, between
a stubborn hackberry and twisted oak: mother and newborn,
their blood soaking the prairie grasses

he walked the hard mile to the pay phone
passing but one unfriendly ranch house on the way
a growling cur keeping him at bay

the operator connected him
with the sheriff who collected his one deputy
and was there in half an hour

Lord Almighty, Lord Almighty
the deputy kept saying, those chants hanging
in the hot air above the bodies  

while the sheriff checked for pulses,
his khaki pants painted round red at the knees
for he was too old to squat  

neither knew the girl, who couldn't
have been age of consent, but the baby looked pink,
strong, though still as stone

the ambulance couldn't make it there;
the driver and deputy carried them out
on one stretcher

both commenting how light
their fated cargo was, how it was a shame
they perished in that old copse

Will knew that was meant to be
when he found them: the little one first clinging
to a dark warm sea inside

forced out by time, her helpless heaving,
and some invisible hand that took part in all matters
of flesh, spirit and bone

the same hand that did not cradle them
but at least found them shade, a cool but cruel
reprieve from their terse time in the sun

Sweetwater, Texas, 1959

we are angels
with cathedrals,
prophets, and poems
to prove it  

other species  
are not endowed
with such gifts:

the ceiling
of the Sistine Chapel
the pyramids, loosing
the bounds of earth
to walk on a moon...
psychoanalysis
the atomic bomb
Anthrax, dioxin
and gunfire
gunfire  

we are maggots
on rotting fruit, sated now
looking for a place to hop off,
to escape before the fruit falls fast  
to the ground

before the oceans rise
and the skies fill with ash
surely we can fly away

but we are wingless
angels, killer angels  
killer angels

I have nothing to say
because nothing is new under the sun
except sunburn

from which I may get
vitamin D, cataracts, wrinkles
and maybe skin cancer

that stole the life
of my fair cousin, one fleshy slab
at a time

so she had abbreviated time
to finish her one long tome about five years
in Morocco

where she had taken
a French lover, who took his life with her pistol
and left a suicide poem

blaming her in iambic pentameter
for his demise, but leaving his small fortune
to her just the same

giving her time, she assumed,
to write her memoirs--unlike I, she had
plenty to say

but there is nothing new
under the sun, except sunburn, which gave me
a tan, and her a death sentence

so now neither of us has anything to say

the jagged edges which gashed
his bare feet on the trash trove of shore by his trailer
slashed the folds of his memory as well

he chooses to tell no tales of that
hungry, motherless time--sharp years when he prayed
his dad would be passed out when he got home

and he usually was, there
on the cat **** sofa, splayed out like some beached whale
while he scavenged for food, and old pop bottles

a lifetime now from those foul filled days
he is a continent away, yet living on the shore,
with a fat portfolio and thin wife

who both protect him from "intrusive thoughts,"
though still he hunts for treasures on the sands, not
the nickel returns that bought his daily bread

instead, he seeks more ancient relics, glass
made smooth by the round chisel of time--soft, cool, full of color,
with no recollection of the fire that forged it

you were born in Denver
during a white out blizzard

like all round babes,
you had no clue, what was in store for you
you couldn't have known...

you would be
the last nickel to ***** through
a five-cent coin phone box,
in El Paso, Texas

or that you would sleep
for a year in a piggy bank,
of a boy named Felipe, who would die
of white blood cancer, before
he could spend you

and who would have thought
you would be in the linty pocket
of a serial murderer named Ray, when
he was captured in Santa Fe, a sunny day
on the ancient square, stalking
his next victim

a jailer used you that very night
with a twin of yours he found in
another picked pocket, of a drunk drifter,
to buy a Hershey's bar, from a machine
that would have taken a dime as well

your face began to show the fingered
signs of age by the time the choppers found sky  
above the Saigon Embassy, where you had spent
an aching April night in the Ambassador's pants

when you turned a half century, you were tossed
into a gallon jug, e pluribus unum, no more special
than others a third your vintage

I finally met you today, only because chance landed you on
the top of the heap, waiting to be saved from further folly

between reality and imagination
between literal and figurative, the thin line,
is not there when I tuck my grandson in,  

all six wise years of him, and assure him
I’ll keep watch  to make sure  no dinosaurs come
and ****** him away in the night

but instead of feigned fright, he proclaims,
there are no more dinosaurs, for a meteor came,
and “****,” says he, they were all gone  

I don’t bother to tell him, some were incinerated  
in the blink of an eye, while millions of their cousins suffered
a slow, gray, choking fate in a forever winter  

still, he is content that I was there
to bid him goodnight, to turn out the light, and wage war
with whatever creatures remained to roam,

or stalk the streets outside  
his room, or any other gathering gloom  
in the spirit or in the flesh

on the rail, not far
from where a young woman jumped
to a lonely death in the cold bay
I found you, in the fog

someone's wedding ring
perhaps once cherished, intended to seal
an eternal bond, but now this band lay
alone, silent, still, on dumber steel

who left you there?
not the doomed woman, for she took her final leap
two Christmases before, and her ring was found
on her withered hand

soft rain began to fall,
like a million tears for forlorn lovers
yet I stayed on the bridge, frozen in time and place
not from the shivering shower

but by the sight of one round, gold trinket
left for fickle fate after another circle had been broken
forever, for my eyes to see, at the edge
of another promised eternity