I’m married to the Man, the
tie ‘round my neck, starving
for the light of Tuscan rays
on a balcony of forgotten love
on the hopes like rays, eagle
flight the post rain ‘bow showing
gold at nightmare’s end, the
song of overwhelming seas
rising tides, a naked walk
into the canvas of stark
golden canyons and buttes,
mesas and plateaus—at one
time the arc of life of the
indigenous strife, apache war
cries in the night, scaring
tourists who fear their shadow,
as shadows have no ties.
***
The sign is bird crap on the
sill, sounds like rivers in my
ear as the waves call the bravest
in rows like dogs without tag,
Finally the rope loosens, and
the sand seems closer to your
toes. You know you are X and
Y—European, Asian or from
somewhere old, African thunder
the drums of songs passed
down from generation to
another; white strangers judging
stomach as thin, the look not
as robust “compared to what”
while a dark monster in
restrictive sport coats inhabits
a place of supposed “power”
to separate mothers from their
children at an arbitrary human
“border” separating human
beings. You there, me here. You
speak that, I this, and let’s
see what other things separate us,
the game of sinking garbage.
I want to get off! I want out
the diesel burning a hole in my
lungs! I want to wonder and
wander through the snow of
no one seems to know. Go there.
Pitch a tent, and see what storm
rises, what the rain brings, the
sum of unknowns so large it must
be quite a tidal tsunami of love
sweat sulking in a corner finally
come out to call me one of
the beads.
Bill Watkins, Traveling Poet 