Arrow

Snap, thrum.
Numb forearm, wrist's throat.

Flash of white
on tan.  Start.
Hightail
stag-fast
bounce down, then up
a chaparral-choked
arroyo.  Clatter of stone
and dust.

From here his
four-point rack appears

a prayer
held aloft,
velvet fingers splayed,
crooked, askew
under an electric-red
sun-shocked sky
wider, more vast
than any a hunter

has ever seen.
Black-green sanctuary, nightfall:

impossible.  Animal
brother mammal

scream a terrible scream
a wounded child sings.

Gambler

Nickel gleam
his single eye
opens.  How rightly

he flicks a switch.
He doesn't try.
Animal timing:

a pure sweep,
smooth, of his rough
arm.  A tightness

in the groin.
Several coins
ago he could have severed

ties and walked off,
unashamed.  But the same
bells ring him sleepless

those nights
he's not there.
Why do they run away,

all those days,
April through May?
Hours spent under lights blinking

through smoke,
the haze, the somnambulent line
for the buffet.

Mental Patient

Rose gold fire illuminated
the nimbus of strands --
radiating corkscrew --
haloed toilet brush
with gesticulating hands.
Hilarious tramp,
eyes glacier blue.
Wild.  Damp
spots where the mildew
can't be scrubbed,
where spiders talk to you.
They divulge scraps of truth
their liars' webs have trapped.
Fuck the minotaur who occupies
your leather and tin steamer trunk.
The Virgin Mary's face
melts from the wall.
To this party all
are invited.  Even me
with my threadbare dignity --
even I am allowed to call.
Do pardon me, how rude:
I crane my neck
to scry a sign
in your furrowed brow.
I spoke with the cow
upstairs.  What a hoot.
She adores your laconic lines.

Tower of Silence

Level with the palm leaves,
green circle around us.
Birds pick our bones clean.
Sun-bleached, leaning
against each other,
rib to hip, beneath a wheeling sky.
Only the sound of water as it drips
onto lime -- the echo marks holy time.
The road back to the village
is red, dusty and dry.