Mahler
begins to fill
the half-dead auditorium
giant step by
giant step
The Colorado
The Snake
The Salmon
My grandfather walks across the front porch
spotted with cancer, smoking
a black cigar
The whales fold themselves back and back inside the long hallways of
salt
You have to stare back at the salt
the sliding mirrors
all day
just to see something
maybe
for the last time
*
By now they are asleep
some are asleep
on the bottom of the world
sucking the world in
and blowing it out
in wave-
lengths
Radiant ghosts
Leif laid his head back on a pillow and waited for all the blood inside him
to flush down
a hole
After seeing whales what do you see?
The hills behind the freeway
power lines
green, green
grass
the green sea
Marco Polo
My grandmother set sail on a small air mattress into the middle of
the pool and fell asleep
Her fingers
dragging the water
The men talk quietly inside
The outdated
California architecture
dissolves
into pale greens, pinks
and stark
lemon
*
I want to set sail from the following three things:
My little sister, tied to her trundle bed, crying, forced to eat slices of
orange
she believed were her goldfish
I tied her wrists
her feet
I did that
The neighbor kid I cornered, shoutingSay you’re fat! Say it!
Say you’re fucking fat!
and he said it
My mother
The waves out here
look like steel
baskets
*
My great-great-grandfather, my great-grandfather, my grandfather
and my father
all looking back
over their shoulders
Half asleep in metal deck chairs
moving the ice around
in their drinks
Do you know who’s going to kill you?
I’m going to kill you
*
Our limbs sound like sand poured out of a Venus Comb
Our brains tick like tidal pools
My grandmother
Our eyelids close like Golden Moons, Tiger Moons, Zebra Moons
My grandfather
Open and
close
*
At night
the voices on the patio
sound like small
darting birds
We set sail
The light
walks away from me
on the water
The light walks away from me
quickly
on the water
Wang Wei: Bamboo Grove
Alone
Finally
It’s nice to sit in the bamboo dark
among the bamboo
dark
Guitars
and a low
whistle
I don’t know anyone here!
Me and
the moon
One shining, the other
shining
*
It doesn’t matter what I wanted
The air
in green waves
A park in the city
A bench
My friends
What I have
is finally invisible
Singing a little tune They can’t take that away from me
Look
the moon is up
The moon
is down
*
Do you think that’s music
we’re listening
to?
Ambulances
and dogs
The trees praying
Strangers walking their darlings beneath streetlights
whispering encouragement
Bending down
to scrape shit off the sidewalk
into little plastic bags
Sirens and
trees
All the music
that’s left
*
You know
how we are going
to disappear
into the dirt forever
Or burn
into the sky
into oceans
Well, I love this about us
and I want to be able to do it
all by myself
It won’t be scary
or cold
Not like what they told us at all
If there are spiders
and there will be
spiders
they will not kill us
in our
New Cities
The End of the West
1
My mother waits for me
breathing easily
having let her hair go
silver, white
longer now
shining
in this
one of her many
afterlives
The new world is black
and glassy
and looks like
the old world: pinpricked
by telephone poles
and stars
She’s unbelievably patient
Her hair piled up
with long
metal needles
She’s never been
this patient
Rocking back and forth
on an onyx-colored
front porch
Putting out cigarettes
and singing
She inhales
my shoulders
my legs
The many ways
I’ve lied to her
My tongue, how
I’ve tried to hurt her
My back, my
hands
She exhales my name
I want her to be happy
and that’s why
she’s here
My Annie Oakley
I want to be happy
and that’s why
she’s here
My Dale Evans
Her name
is a pair of pearl-handled
silver-inlaid
six-shooters
Everything she ever wished for
written in cursive
beneath
the barrel
Mom
There was no other life
She breathes in
Now
I remember
There were hundreds of
other lives
She chose
this one:
Childlight everywhere
Cutting across
the newly waxed
1975
linoleum
in the new kitchen: yellow
yellow
yellow
She breathes out
My mother dreams of being a child again
and also
of horses
cantering down the sidewalk
in lovely
California
light
The smell of lilacs
The sound of hooves
on concrete
She waves to us from on top of her pony
in chaps and a T-shirt
Little boots
Little hat
Little holster
/>
A trick rider
playing to the crowd
At the age of five she’s already waiting for me
But it’s different
I was the crowd
My brother and sister
and me
In the rodeo delivery room
we clapped and
clapped
What is this like for her?
It’s like when she and Mickey and Pat
would sneak up on the mares
at night
With belts
No saddles
Whispering their names
or the names
they’d give them
Buttercup
Mistletoe
Burnt Sienna
When I’m quiet enough
I can hear her
digging
the heels of her red-and-black
hand-stitched cowboy
boots
into the clay
around her
Calling me home
Over the range
Over the rhinestones
The stars
The six-shooters
Over the bluebottles
Over the bottle grass
The prairie
The promise
Rain
Birds
Horses
Spurs
2
My grandmother sips
Takes
another
sip
In her blue-light
cha-cha
afterlife
Are you thirsty?
Yes
I’m thirsty
Oh honey
this one is going
to last
Her tongue
edging the impossibly
thin stemware
A lake on fire
Gin Fizz
Tom Collins
swimming pools
wine spritzer
Gin Fizz
the Pacific Ocean
the Pacific Ocean at dusk
wine spritzer
lemon trees
Tom Collins
redwoods
Redwood City
a Baileys
a Baileys and coffee
The company of men
White Russian
Black Russian
White Russian
If she could play anyone
she’d play
Joan Crawford
If she could play opposite anyone
she’d pick Cary Grant
So handsome
in tails!
The Thrill Is Gone
Autumn Leaves
Look for the Silver Lining
Oh honey
Cheek to Cheek
I’m in heaven
In the movie she’s misremembering
she’s Joan
at the top of the stairs
in sequined
black
about to descend
on silver pumps
Backlit
by stars and
stardust
Grant waits at the bottom
carelessly turning
a silver cigarette case
over in his hands
His boyfriend waits for him
in the trailer outside
Her husband
waits for her in the bar
Stars and
stardust
Grant insists that they dance
at the foot
of the staircase
Despite the hour
Despite all the fake moonlight
His hand
flat against the flat of her back
so she has to move
where
he wants her to move
They look safe
and pretty
It’s hard to see what Grant is wearing
because his hair is
so perfect
But the deathgown
my grandmother wears
is a silk-and-metal
design by
Edith Head
Tails and top hats
and black servants
that’s for her
White canes and white ties
She throws rice and streamers
from the deck of a ship
headed south
She pulls the hem of her black-
and-white dress
into a Bentley
headed for the coast
Headed for the poolside
suburbs
Lemon trees
and blacked-out
bourbon
Her Cary Grant alcoholic husband
closing up
her
close-up
My grandmother sips
Takes another
sip
Blue light
Moonlight
Are you thirsty?
Yes
I’m thirsty
The veins in her hands look like jewelry
Her face
smiling looks like
credits rolling
3
My brother the Saint walks out among the trees
to cure them
of their blindness
To cure them
in his sacred
and feathered
afterlife
He listens carefully to the veins of the maple
pumping green
The metallic green
on the pin-
head
of a fruit fly
It smells like photosynthesis
Metal
A migraine
Saint Francis has nothing on my brother
walking the streets of Assisi
everywhere
Moving his hands
over the bark
and cancer
Making the sign, making the sign
Streetlights flicker
Ants gather
around his feet
In the burning miracle
The trees aren’t really trees, the trees are really people
men women and children
we see that now
White sulfur
amputates their faces
leaving a clearing
made out of skin
and fever
My brother the Saint
steps from body
to burning
body
like an acrobat
Reopening the holes
Raising the dead of their mouths
Walking on the water
of their eyes
In the red miracle
He’s a little tired
and full of
visions
Poppies in the snow
Blood in the toilet
He wants to take
and be
taken
He turns in his
red bed
our demons
into fleas, our hands
into stars
In the last miracle
my brother the Saint lifts the face off the west
like a handkerchief
Blue
with white curlicue designs
that look like
cotton
Lightly, lightly
He snaps it out into the wind
and lays it back down
smoothing out
the edges
hospital-tucking
the corners
4
Then I am found
walking around the old neighborhood
just like I never left
Trying to learn how to whistle
Watching the dogs
tear at the chain-link
fence
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The End of the West Page 3