Misspent Youth

Eight full hours I worked that day
before slouching towards the gray

line of ocean stretched pole to pole.
Whitecaps and a tanker's scarred hull

slid towards the hidden Golden Gate.
I had a fifth of vodka with me.  Great

plumes of sand, tan and claw-shaped
leapt up off the dunes.  Succulents draped

over the hills hid a place where I
could sleep in my vast German army coat lined

with fake green fur.  Warmed by the lonely horn
heralding fog, I donned headphones.  Blondie.  Born

of a beast of a man, I could lay my head
anywhere away from the lights, the club kids' tread.

Civic Center 11 am

Stainless steel, brushed,
the ring stamped with a crown.

It glows gold in the hushed
sun-flooded bazaar down

from City Hall's verdegris dome.
Among pollarded trees stands a lone

vendor selling pretzels and Coke.
He seemed the king of the world

that moment he tipped his hat and spoke.

Marisol

She was smacked on the face only once as a child, for calling her brother a name.  "You little shit!" she cried when Ruben during one of his games smeared mud on the pink moire silk of which her quinciñera dress was made.  Her mother knew enough English to get dark in the face and bent out of shape.  Tears of anger cascaded down Marisol's face.  She ran away that night, but by the next day graced the backseat of a cruiser that had been on the make for truants.  What could he say, her father who worked til sundown for so little pay?  He was meek in the police station, his gray boots streaked with dirt, his shirt flecked with hay.  "Your mother forgives you and loves you, and God will never let you stray."  What a jolt into womanhood, that sixteenth birthday.

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.