Travels

I’ll tell a tale of travels long

and those I chanced to meet.

I will not do these strangers wrong,

nor will I be discreet.

Willis was a walrus who

lay naked on the beach,

gnawing on an old blue shoe,

completely out of reach.

A woodpecker who was his friend

said, “Simply let him be,

he’s got more chemicals inside

than you, or even me.”

Jill the hawk was kind and sang

of all the deeds she’d done

but each one turned into a joke

she hadn’t done a-one.

Bill was just a playful dog,

his best friend on his mind;

he never was a boss or hog,

but soon he came to find

that when his friend was far away

there were no games, no more,

and even on a normal day

he wasn’t like before.

Will and Jill and Bill are good,

I tell you honestly,

but what I’d like to know, and should:

their stories about me.

Flight to Columbia

A checkerboard landscape rolls out beneath me

as I ride a shining, metal bird over Kansas.

From this perspective, the farms are like playsets

ready to be owned and broken by some

lucky child. My family is waiting in Missouri,

ready to finish my trek for me.

I left the Rockies in the past, but their folds are mirrored in the creeks of Kansas:

laid out like a photo you want to keep to remember the shape

of something that will always elude your hands.

Train from Denver

I used to think investigators came one-by-one

—a gripping tale of one lonely soul, hungry

for justice—(at most,

two-by-two so they could fight

at first, then work together to solve it)

but there is a swarm of investigators on my train.

Hardly a challenge with this criminal

packaged up and half-asleep;

I wouldn't pay to see that movie.

It's funny, I was worried

for a while in Denver

but this train is confined

and being confined means you are separate

from something. I was separated

from their numbered badges,

steel eyes and old law.

It's four a.m. and we just stopped

in Omaha. The man beside me puts on

four layers of deodorant and exits the train. Following the Law

of Equilibrium, black jackets march onto the train

and strike sleepy heads with their flashlight beams.

They aren't looking for just anyone.

One stops by me.

Here we are: playing

grown-up hide and seek, making small talk

while he checks my ticket and asks

question after question.

Why travel?

I'm honest about almost everything.

No, I have no weapons.

I laugh when he asks about cocaine,

meth, heroine. He laughs too.

He fits the stereotype, fat and white.

I wish he had chosen to be a mall Santa.

All I want for Christmas is off this train.

~~~

He searches my first bag,

the one I'm not worried about.

Still talking, he searches the second one:

he fondles my sweater,

closing in.

My secret consumes my hot brain. I wasn’t prepared

for an interrogation. I'll crack—

not another knuckle!

I'm miles ahead of myself now:

I'm back home with nobody

looking for anything of mine

because they don't care what I have.

Is this over? He's clumsy

in zipping up my bag, tells me

I'm close to home—he mustn't be very perceptive.

My eyes must be wide.

The Docks

 The docks are drying daily

and the weathered man begs the pub

to let his whistle grow a little wetter,

to let his busy worries out a little better.

His head rolls off his neck

in cracking waves which whisper of something

closer to what he remembers going through

when he used to have a mind he could consult.

He sinks with the tide

into the wrinkled leather

of the circular, supple barstool.

His few, silent glances—

over the whiskey and into

the mirror behind the bar—

show more than he could say.