THE BOYFRIENDS

We entered the pine forest cautiously

like a bunch of board game inventors

accustomed to counting their steps.

A cotton undergarment flung on a sapling,

discarded corsages of facial tissue,

taunts written in drugstore lipstick on shale:

everything indicated that the girlfriends

had passed this way not so long ago.

Already the birds were making nests

from their hair. Each girlfriend had a comb

stowed in her ass pocket. Their hairdos

had names: El President, the Mondo.

Boy, you’d be in trouble if you forgot

the name.

Moon with a calabash in its hand,

wolves like a cassette tape my cousin

listens to on headphones during dinner

while everybody else dispatches their carrots

in silence, I keep wondering why when someone

leaves me, I miss the way they tap on a can

of pop before opening it,

more than I miss anything else about them.

Their leader appears in silhouette on the hill

crest, wearing a headdress of fake jade

and used cotton swabs. Woo woo woo,

she says, and yes that is a hatchet

in her hand. So we run back into town

and prop ourselves up on the shovels

we left lying around, back when we wanted

some girlfriends.

YOUR SCRAPPY TRUTH

I brought your truth home with me

but because it was scrappy it insisted

on taking the high narrow road

out of town. We saw witches at each

bend, selling their witch remedies

and muttering when we chose not

to stop. Honestly, I could use a witch

remedy right now, but your scrappy

truth insisted I was made of medicine.

That my tears could staunch a wolf’s

tears, etc. But where are the wolves?

Probably at a party we weren’t invited

to, snapping up gizzards from marbled

ramekins, telling their lavish wolf jokes

about farmers and such. I’ve been

lapping at those patches of sunlight

that appear sometimes on my rug.

I’ve been mixing up my garnishes.

Obviously I am in need of a witch

remedy, or some wolf cuisine, but

your scrappy truth keeps feeding me

the oils of an overrated mystical plant.

The whole time I kept my truth muzzled

in the backseat, in the closet, where I

couldn’t hear it whining for bile,

for a little negative smoke to see by.

So I wanted to bring your truth back

to you. It was languishing in my care.

But it insisted on hitching a ride

with some farmers whose gleaming

chickens would agree to anything.

My truth and I will stay behind

and nuzzle this scrap of flannel.

It’s our favorite pastime.