What was it that homeless man said in Kingman
I wouldn't have you choose this life for anything
I got grandkids your age and I would hate
for them to live out here
When the Asain tourists piled out of the fiery busses
on the way north to Vegas, that glinting rash where
one America is enshrined, my comrade and I stood off the lots
of truckstops and some men stared at her, snaggled
in sweaty breasts and greasy hair, beautiful
Without knowing anything, the dried apple faces of
maybe a million elderly women wanted to strip
me of my flesh and
men in pickups, themselves with nothing obvious to do
told me to make myself useful, Why don't you pull some weeds
when all it is that I want is I want my breakfast
of peanuts and chocolate milk
before the heat compresses the world today
again in a map of possible sanction
I will walk myself into in every single place
I want to go.
That I would lose my money as if it were air I breathe,
that shit would get so real at that point, I knew. That's
what you fear, the asking, that anyone would be kind
without a secret plan to fuck me or hit me and they
are out there like rabid strays, I admit, I know
The vast majority were simply indifferent, accelerating
like soda-weaned children with sore asses, their
minds clutching bright promises of their destination
But a woman picked us up once.
She was moving with her baby and played Christian
rock soft on the stereo of her vast 70's Olds and gave us
sugar- snap peas and, leaning back, I fell asleep next to
her chattering son, something I would never do
in the presence of most strangers in their cars
and I would only mention her because the absolute
most simple and quiet things happen and grab
the scruff of your gruddy, crusted neck
and tell you things about people you never hear
and with that understanding I come back to life
believing nothing of condemnation and
aspects of the beloved burn in everything
