Lost Between La Garita and La Paz
There are horses
On this freeway, Mexico 19,
And roses in the backseat
Of the car and they’re rambling
In the wind like somebody
On acid, petals cutting loose
Like purple butterflies.
At a table at Tre Galline
Last night a guy sang
A song he wrote about
Transients. I know
Something about this,
Having been one.
He sang about Freedom
With a Capital F
For Fuck, for Frio and Feliz,
For Fantasmagórico,
Those ants, so small
You think you’re imagining,
F for Frightened
By packs of dogs, their balls
Hanging as they roam
This street—the night,
A long cave, a color
So dark most have never
Seen it, what it is to worry
About where you’ll sleep,
And what it’s like to not
worry about paying rent
And the fear
That if your car flips,
It’ll take a while
To find you on this road,
If they ever do like the bull
Ditched too the shoulder,
His sturdy horns
The only part protected
From maggots
And buzzards. And I
Picture myself roadside.
What will be left of me,
As Mexico City sinks
Since we drank so much
Of its water, leaving
Little to keep it afloat.
The Nature of Monogomy
The bald eagle, the oldfield mouse,
the albatross, and Atlantic puffin
who spends time at sea after breeding—
These guys lodge together for life.
Coyotes are known to never cheat,
like gibbons, the sea horse, and lovebirds.
But don’t believe it about lovebirds.
It’s true mine were thrust together,
plucked from a Petco. An unsuccessful
arranged marriage, they bickered
nonstop like a broken wheel,
a squeaky door hinge, tennis shoes
grinding a basketball court. We
named them each, part of the same
Russian word for kiss—
Putza and Wawatza. While married,
we too indulged in constant togetherness,
once even a couple’s colonoscopy.
Then one of the birds died.
Now the other lives happily,
unlike titi monkeys who exhibit signs
of distress when away from the other,
says Citizens for the Preservation
of Wildlife. Geese protect their mates
from predators, as do barn owls
and swans. Ninety percent of birds,
and five percent of mammals mate for life—
gray wolves, black vultures,
French angelfish, the scarlet macaw,
California condor. The prairie vole,
poster child of animal monogamy,
stays true even after death,
80 percent of the time. Why is this
how every fucking fairytale ends?
My friend Arlette once said
of a divorcee, Of course she’s alone.
Who would want her? Arlette,
whose husband I knowfor a fact
is a cheater and fall downdrunk.
Easily seduced and Stockholmed
myself, I can’t blame fairytales
or ‘friends’ that I want a prince
on his white fucking horse to rescue
me from my chronic self-loathing,
meaninglessness and impending
death. During a recent breakup
Person-X told me, you are too beautiful
to be alone, but all I could think of
was how the sandhill crane, the octopus
and shingleback lizard stay true
for life, and the beaver too—at least until
one dies, then the other moves on.