Dirk Marple

[Twenty Bucks]

At 24,

today,

well yesterday,

at breakfast with my father:

eggs over-easy

yellow yoke

hashbrowns toast

and coffee we take with cream

and sugar with mine,

we make conversation which

amounts to him telling me

the happenings in his life

and his thoughts consequently,

and I listen and make comments

enjoying the time,

it’s nice not to be working

or working on something.

Anyhow, I made a step yesterday morning

at breakfast with my father

who always pays for these sorts of things,

but I took the check

and I’m somehow less youthful for it

or have crossed a line into manhood

somehow,

yesterday morning,

for only twenty bucks.

[Tumbleweed]

Tumbleweed caught in the fence line morning,

walking through the desert rosary,

nothing reflective in the nighttime backpack,

two water jugs per person,

what prayer do you say when your tongue

is cracked from the heat?

There are crosses in the sand,

cacti with an eagle eating an angel,

eyes in the darkness, headlights,

death both ways. Sun bleached bone,

teeth in the tree branch, shade as a cage,

white sun like a mouth, School of the Americas,

hot wind blowing north.