THE TEXAS PLEASER

The sunset is focused and red

as a post-pugilist's solar plexus:

a pain never jet-lagged or

caught without a thread

in conversation: the bus

is a timeline of its own

and when we're on the road

we won't speak for hours;

our needs are all bandaged up

and clicked shut in a tight

white box, lickety-slick with

a red X on the side, and

at night we know

if we pulled over we'd cry.

The next town is an "oh,

what did you say?" and

the town after that is

the ring, and the town

after that is the card girl,

and the town after that is

a bucketful of spit. 

FAUST STREET BRIDGE

When the cold has cheated 

its way down into Texas,

and the wet orange leaves 

carpet Faust Street Bridge,

and we've all forgotten 

to wear our windbreakers:

The Guadalupe is spilling

over the shallow dam.

My sister speaks of life's

little things that add up

to the big things: the coffee

is the morning; the morning

is the job; the job is on the bridge,

and the bridge is historic:

each picture of gray steel

is a narrative waiting for

a couple of characters.

And my sister and I are quieted
by the digraph of the Guadalupe

flowing over the dam into itself,

and then a family of three

thumps upon the bridge,

all of us in a new history.

FIVE LINES ABOUT THE SEA

for Mike Sammons, 3:04 AM, 3-19-13

One quarter of the compass can be divided into 
                            an infinite number of degrees;

I'll meet you in the impossible shadow 
                            between one of these millions,

like waves or plankton or the tiny little beans 
                            that turn into seaweed --

we are lucky and unlucky.  A sailor's trinket 
                            cast overboard will make a charm

or break a spell or bob along a deep tide 
                            towards another's home or our own.