TO CATHERINE IN DALLAS


What a bleached out world at times,
with or without sand, snow, Clorox.
Is Instant Cream of Wheat a real cereal?
Is a warm gut more basic than taste?

Stretching so far on a cold morning,
thinking of her in Dallas, overland
from Tucson, then New Mexico
through an unspeakably dark night.

Too many stars, she wrote,
a city girl's wonderment,
a woman finding no peace in them,
the frozen Milky Way, then infinity.

Albuquerque in a mountain pit,
a volcano spit it out eons ago,
anemone in a rocky tidal pool,
she said, I am lonely as hell.

Near the Texas Book Depository
the president attacked by aliens,
twisters, cowboy hats, African bees,
she captured it all on a postcard.

She lived to tell her story,
that tangle of pipes, lights, steam,
candles belching bloody flames,
chicken fried steak & black coffee.

Time with too much silence,
the bite of sour orange while
a snowstorm rages, a tarot deck
is the only good clue we have.