My Moses
Big Jack and his walking stick
live on the ridge. Kokapelli’s
orphan kids dance for him,
bobcat urine's in the weeds,
the shotgun barrel's up his sleeve,
a Persian coin is on the wind.
The Chinese Mountains smell the moon
and arch their backs. I tell him, Jack,
sometimes I wish I was living in
canvas France, the old west,
a picture book, the Sea
of Tranquility, or even in
the den near the hot spring.
He says, kid, to hell with
phantom limbs; spring is a verb,
a wish is a wash, a walking stick
is a gottdam wing.
(first appeared in Poetry)
Big Jack and his walking stick
live on the ridge. Kokapelli’s
orphan kids dance for him,
bobcat urine's in the weeds,
the shotgun barrel's up his sleeve,
a Persian coin is on the wind.
The Chinese Mountains smell the moon
and arch their backs. I tell him, Jack,
sometimes I wish I was living in
canvas France, the old west,
a picture book, the Sea
of Tranquility, or even in
the den near the hot spring.
He says, kid, to hell with
phantom limbs; spring is a verb,
a wish is a wash, a walking stick
is a gottdam wing.
(first appeared in Poetry)
