I want us to make it
On every last
World’s Biggest Skillet

Stairway to Nowhere

Bonnie and Clyde’s
Bullet-riddled
Backseat

Behind mailboxes
To Space Aliens

To make love in a
Cathedral of Junk
Just because

Nothing I wouldn’t do
To buy Econoline used
And get lost with you.

To explore an America
Made for Polaroids
And shoebox

To watch you sleep
Still against window
Touch-up toenails
On the dashboard

To pull on over
To road’s shoulder
Pursue you through
Endless rows of
Six-foot stalked
Sweet corn

On our way both to and
From yet another dead
Circus Elephant’s grave.

We humans and our
Half-primitive brains

I once heard
Someone say.

And soon we do return to water
In which to bathe and wade
Leave old cut-off jean to beach
And seagull
Along with every other
Stitch of dull care
And cloth

Serve ourselves up
To hungry sunset
Like wontons in broth

We’ll kiss the sand clear
From each other’s ears

Flip off freighter
After freighter
After freighter

Dry by bonfire
Sleep till daylight

Nothing I’d rather do
Than buy Econoline used
To get lost with you.

Some heavy sky
Bone-dry nights
Them Yucca moths
Get real acrobatic

Belly rub roof to
Buzzing static

So we choose motel room
Make change and soon love
Dream deeply between
Cheap cotton sheets

On a few thousand
Magic fingers and

When android grandkids ask
How we spent our near
Apocalyptic, post post-
Modern American romance

You’ll grin a little
Remember threads
Lifted to electric
Find my failed eyes

Say on prayers
And spares

Along red desert walls
Appalachian elevations
Bridges that both draw
And become tunnels

We can save Himalayas
For more sustainable
Civilizations, Baby,

Tonight I’d rather happen
Upon traveling carnival
Cross path with
Ferris Wheel

Damn high, but
Nowhere near
A stratosphere

All of it gone
Come morning
All of us just
Impressions left
In an empty field

Couple paper plates
Stained by condiments
And funnel cakes

No, nothing I’d rather do
With an Econoline used
Than get lost with you.

What can’t an old roadside
Bowling alley photo booth
Show us?

Beyond two profiles
Past pressed lips

Blood in mine arrived
In veins

Veins in
Chained limbs

Chained limbs
In dark hulls

Dark hulls of—

Mixed with
Dead masters

Dead confederates
Dead presidents

Dead master confederate
Presidents

Survivors of genocide
Flattened, made shadow
Plastered on city hipster
Cigarette packs

Li’l manure
Li’l molasses

Whole damn
Heap a soul

Couple other Jim
Crow coagulants

And then yours
Bit thinner and
Centuries later

No Waldorf Astoria, sure
But, still, a front door.

The spit we swap
Houses histories.

So what can’t an old family
Bowling alley photo booth
Show us

About what hasn’t begun
But what ain’t over?
What we inherit
But can’t hardly heal?

Will I sit in traffic with
You so damn slow that
Bugs in amber got
More hope to go

Watch sun swelling so
Heavy in your hair and
Not feel guilt pangs
Not remember
Mama’s hot comb
Right there, cooling
Right there

On her stove?

What can’t a photo booth

What can’t a few black
And white wallet prints

Show us
Show them
Make plain

About America?

A future of Cadillacs, meatloaves in starter homes, white picket hats flapping
          off laundry lines out back

A future of stale molotov popcorn hurled off “colored” balconies

A future of buttery sunray snuck out between moving storm clouds

A future of dream speeches, speeches about dream speeches, dreams
          about speeches about dream speeches—all mp3 streaming

A future of rivers made red at times, that never truly waver and never ever
          run dry

Nothing I wouldn’t do
To buy Econoline used
And get lost with you.

Nothing I’d rather do
Than buy Econoline used
To get lost with you.

To wake some morning
After some big blizzard

To slide open van door
Where we’d be horses
Horses in the snow
The both of us
Following close
In the tracks
That horses leave
In the snow and
Just as horses
We’d know just
What horses know
Of shared brokenness
Undone by such
Moments frozen
In the snow

Known in bones
Since before those
First Sumerians
Picked that Ole
Lapis Lazuli Blues.

To wake some morning
After some big blizzard
But different.

Horse or human
Nest egg or legend
Love or husband
Is what I’m sayin’

You choose.

Because,

I want us to make it

I truly do
Just the two

Liberating pies from diners
One slice at a time
Resting foreheads
To primordial redwoods
Of like mind.

If only wanting
Ever made it so.

I wish you and
Soon groom
Your lifetime of

Cirque Du Soleils
And Vegas Buffets

I truly do
Just the two

And I’ll just shotgun
These here beers

In this old Reno
Walmart parking lot

Alone.

All the while, crooning…

[cue moonlight]

Nothin’ I wouldn’t do
To buy Econoline used
And get lost with you… 

Nothin’ I wouldn’t do
To buy Econoline used
And get lost with you… 

Nothin’ I wouldn’t do
Oh, Baby, Baby, Baby! 

Nothin’ I wouldn’t do
Oh, Baby! Oh, Girl!