COP: You killed a homeless old lady in a wheel chair  
KID: I know, I was there…  

he grabbed her
stabbed her  
slashing her again and again,
downward through hot flesh to cold bone  
like she was some mattress filled with money
in her pockets were slips of paper
with hopeful, hopeless scribbles,
cigarette butts and
two dollars and seventy-six cents,
all in change,  
which he exchanged for Skoal
or maybe…Red Man  
the **** colored juice from this bounty
dripping from his grinning mouth
when the cops cuffed him  
and shoved him into their cruiser  

he confessed, over and over  
like he wanted to have one confession
for each slice of the blade  
for each wound he made
for every other silent sin he saw
an acknowledgement
of his petty part  
in the fall  
he wanted her last sight
to be of him shutting her eyes,
muting her cries
to him, luring lullabies    

the judge would not put him to death,
though he would have liked to  
even with his own hand, he mused  
for who could be so joyously jaded  
at the slaughter of another  
instead
he again asked, why?

KID: I made ME immortal in her sight
JUDGE: Your eyes will close a final time as well
and nobody will be there to tell
KID: I know
JUDGE: Do you?

we shared a camel
after my thumb stopped you
I took the first drag
before I handed it to you
you trusted my spit enough to share
and my road look enough
for me to be there,
in your new Olds Eighty-eight

you
had just come back,
from there
I was on my way,
I did not ask if that was why
your right hand had only *******
and a thumb, though you told me
of trying to close an APC hatch
and the AK-47 round that kept you
from doing magic tricks

when our smoke was half gone, we passed
the dying neon of a long dead bar
safe from its stench in your new smelling car
was then you asked
if I had “anything else to smoke”
a line from our riddled anthem,
we sang like nursery rhyme

I had what I had stuffed in my socks
since thumbs attracted cops as well
as wounded warriors in shiny new rides
I piggy lit the joint with the *** before
I crushed it in your fresh ash tray
now we were sharing our deepest breaths
and whatever else we could not forget

the **** was gone by the time
we reached the last city lights
and we, in our flying chariot,
zipped into the black desert night, it
was then your demons began to howl
maybe it was a full moon that called them out
to ride on its beams into the starry sky
where they could dance with other devils
and gods who had forsaken them, and you

I did not understand your moans, your tears
or the song you played on the eight track
that chanted about freedom which could not be bought or sold
or to whom you spoke when you wailed
you were sorry, sorry again and again,
I only knew they were ghosts
spirits kept at bay by the light of day
but there to haunt you in the dark
“Reggie, Big Mike and Cleveland”
all silent as you begged them
to forgive you for some simmering sin
I could not understand,
(not then in the desert dark,
though one day I would beseech other ghosts
to let me off the hook as well)

your cries did stop when you turned
onto a rutted desert road,
where you put the pedal to the floor
and the rocks pocked the undercarriage
like machine gun fire

you stopped,
and popped out the eight track
a half mile from highway 54
I lit another camel in the synovial silence
your tears kept streaming down your face
but you no longer called out to the ghosts, perhaps
left behind you on that black highway

I don’t know if they spoke to you
when I handed you the smoke, you did
look around, as if someone was there
before reaching over to open my door…

I did not ask why you were leaving me
with the moon and the stars and the sand,
so far from the lights and sound, or why
I could not feel my feet when
they touched the ground, the last thing
I saw was your dust filling the rumbling air
and the orange glow of the camel
flying through the blue night

I am old, though
I still cling to chains,
wires that hold this old bridge together  
but one day the bridge, and I  
will fall into the water, and
not see the sun again    
I am old, but still tight,
though I no longer shine  
chemistry’s master is time
to me an illusion, but those
who look at me are not fooled  
I am old, and when I begin to unwind,
any unknown calibrated moment,
will I make graceful grunts
or squeal
like a locomotive’s brakes
piercing eardrums of those
who did not know I was there
until I was twisted off  
I am old, and one day
in your rusting future  
I will fall into the water,
and not see the sun again

he thought the border
was a line, between two spaces,  
two tongues
or
a no man’s land  
where imagined demons
slithered through the night  
or,
when dreaming,
a door, to another world,    
yet still a flatland

but he dreamed little  

and
when I told him
the border  
was the slit eye of a fish    
immersed in waves without words  
a place where sound
could be tasted  
and a scent seen  
as clearly as scarlet sky  
and light inhaled  
as a suckled symphony  
when I told him this
he asked what two worlds
this border defined  
as if my words
had been heard by his ears
rather than tasted
as the sweetest lies