Classic Poem

The screamer sleeps, inside.
The desert's wide awake:
the mouse, the rattlesnake.
I've come out here to hide,

behind our house, below
the riddled sky, afraid
of what our bodies made.
To the south: Mexico...

These are the nights men run.
Guaymas before midday,
a beach-town life ... I play
it out. Such things are done.

The Rincons seep like a stain
into the paling east.
The borders are policed.
The wail, nearby, of a train.











From Poetry Magazine, Volume 190, Number 2 May 2007. Used with permission.