Here is the misunderstanding
The bombs do not explode
But slide in waiting furrows
On the face of the land
Awaiting the compulsion
Of hidden springs
To bloom
Nor does the lover
Look up and see eyes
That are mirrors
But falls into a stride
And rings like a bell
And only days later
Will burst
Thus the killer
Does not seek a victim,
But an accomplice
In the intimacy of action
The thief seeks a donor
The victim a sponsor
And the master needs only a reason
To expand
The singer builds ears
And God begets sin
And governments plant gardens
That bear deaths and prizes
And revolve upon the seasons
To crush and scream
To be born
Here, then, is the paradox
Truth does not set free
But sinks into the wrinkles
On the faces of the crowd
Awaiting a concensus
Of force and fate
To ignite
She was an angel to the redlands,
A cheerleader from God.
Each cut she cleansed held promises
Each eye she stitched was open
To the pinnacles' revelations.
She tried to be tender to bronze teen whores
Whose youth was pressed by the sun
Whose time was taken too hard.
From night to night their obsidian eyes saw her lie.
At night the tribal bucks would come
And cut themselves fat slices
Of her young white belly
And her untried cries,
Leaving soft-lipped wounds
That she would stitch with prayer
And wash with alcohol.
Her visions of those nights
Were red grit under her eyelids
From week to week the doctors
Turned to upright red stone.
After a year she cried for her lies,
Closed her eyes to the dust
Of redrock on the wind.
She took up with Doc Cuervo,
Tasted deep of her own medicine
And let it all fall down around her.
From year to year she grew redder
And her touch came to heal.
Stitching and staunching,
Clipping, injecting,
She found the heart of her mission
On the cold stone night floors.
She paid for her love
And moistened her eyes
And turned her dry heart to worship
Of warm air, of tight flesh,
Of cool glass, of taut truth.
From time to time she saw it all
But was quick to recover.
