Hey, I Landed
the smell of the Pheonix airport bathroom is
something sexy from an early age
something like
the bath and body vanilla
of a classmate, or
the time I got food poisoning in Tuscon
with our family friends’ son
Bryson, who I loved
something sexy
from an early age about
puking boston market and
sleeping weakly in the same
air-conditioned house
Castles
how tall a mountain
could have once been
underwater?
we walk on them now
the red rocks that really
look like snoopy
and a pair of nuns
aw a blue jay,
I try
on the red it’s really blue
jays are nasty birds
my dad tells me, the world
as a sandwich
blue-silver top and
under red and
green between
layers of wow
real castles
The Women
the women
of the spice cabinet, salt and pepper
dog walking mystics
the Susans of Sedona
swarm the trails
their long braids swinging
The Susans have hyper extended
knees, buckling between
leather legs
in a good way
I want to be them
to have me and
my wolf pup’s aura
photographed each morning and
to get cac-upuncture
with saguaro spikes
and to back my car
into a spot that reads
park here
you aware and relaxed friend
Bartender
The bar is closed
at 5:30 for 15 whole minutes
the bar is just a little sliding window
how do I say we wait
but only one of us
patiently,
the sun is setting
and the bartender emerges
bandaged and
wounded in a few places
I love her, but not yet
she says she doesn’t drink the wine
because
she can barely
make it down the hill sober
I look at her chest
the gauze
does she walk?
she wears makeup
we get tastes in plastic cups
I return the next day to the window
for a beer, me and all the guys
I don’t know at the pool
drinking beer
no number of sunscreen will
shield me from the heat
of their eyeballs just dying to
connect, dying to ask me
what state I live in because the
Spanish wife of the PT doesn’t
speak enough english they
want me to say something
hearty and clear I can feel it
the bartender is the same, fragile
A mom, I learn, and meets my words
with a cooling puddle of competence
dialysis, she says, when people
complain, look at this place
the rocks, she gives me another taste
Ranch
I’m stumped by the pile
of this place, it’s called a ranch
it’s so big, it’s a long drive
from one end to the other
too big a picture to see at once
and too big a place to keep clean
my heart breaks
for the pink man
in the leg brace, but more
for the Native American
Learning Center, tucked behind
the elevators
sorry or not the man hobbles on by
the pool people
who are also pink
are angry with the ducks
for loitering around their now
steamy caesers
I admire the duck’s shiny neck
and swim with him in the pool
this big place has small flies
because of the small pieces of old crust
at the ranch, I feel the weight of the world
my dad is by the pool too
bless his heart, waiting for me
to join, but I’ve stopped at a chair
in all it’s glory, cushions boiling,
in a boat of thick, polished wicker
we’ve been referred to as
a couple twice
a couplet
it’s offered a bad taste
does no one see a dad and their grown
daughter? I wonder, just dads with sugar, he said
do we want a king bed instead is where I’ll stop
because if I don’t I’ll will that ecoli into reality, that ecoli
on the romaine lettuce from Yuma, Arizona which
dad and I have both eaten twice
what a sad place, I’ll say it
one of many homes to the most
pervasive, thinly veiled cult
called everyone
enjoying themselves
in a hoax
they don’t know that
vacation unfolds
