She Has Jesus in Her Eyes
She has Jesus in her eyes
sweet pools without bottoms
shining lifting me
to the mountaintop
She has Jesus in her eyes
sweet pools without bottoms
shining lifting me
to the mountaintop
Walking out my door today
I saw what I thought was play.
Birdies flew and sang away
and shat on everything.
Jealousy came over me.
Why can’t life just let me be.
I have to go in to pee
and they drop bombs outdoors!
But the great outdoors can be a cold hard place.
It can freeze the pecker, right off a cardinal’s face.
I sit down behind my desk
Tell the truth it’s quite a rest.
Don’t have to flap to find my nest.
And I’ve got the AC!
The safe people in casual
silk laughing in that almost-rich
suburban way. My sister
& I think they all own
sailboats & Cessnas. Have turquoise
swimming pools, eat
escargot with silver tooth
picks. We lack the suavity
to get by here, but we want to stick
around & pretend. Peek
into the windows of their tony
boutiques. Linger late
on the boulevard, eat chicken
schnitzel & sauerkraut
at Stella’s. We spot
a vintage navy
Mercedes cruising
on cobblestone, squat
on a cast-iron bus
bench & wait for the street
lights to switch on. Their beams
shoot though amber globes,
circa-1926, form golden swirls
that dance in the air like pinwheel
ghosts. The 10:30 Steeltown
Express rolls up to the red
shingled bus stop & we shuffle
back to the elongated
leather bench seat, back
to our bedimmed home
town where, like hidden
jailbirds, we are, for
today, united. Soon
we will each run
in opposite directions.
A group of us went
into that abandoned mine
in the low mountains west of Tucson,
crouched on all fours
down the length of the long shaft.
I was behind you, you didn’t realize —
I was always behind you —
when someone up front
started screaming about bats.
On they came, a river of bats
filling the narrow gap
between head and the jagged roof.
You shined your light up to see
the furred bodies, the leathered wings,
an endless stream, and started to laugh.
Not one touched my hair,
or brushed my skin as they passed overhead.
You turned back and saw me,
smiled that toothsome smile of yours —
I confess I fell in love again.
At the end of the shaft, an open room,
we could finally unbend ourselves,
see the marks from pick axe,
the crushed beer cans from prior expeditions.
We lingered in this small womb
beneath the desert, perfectly cool,
got baked, played the light
across each others’ faces,
all the while knowing our only way out
was back down that long tunnel,
the traverse we’d have to make
to be reborn as the people
we’d both come to hate.
I love singing harmony
but a dissonant closing chord
holds tension and motion
and makes the moment beautiful
like the crow of a city rooster.
When my five-year old would ask
a question I couldn’t answer,
she’d announce, “It’s a mystery!”
We preferred the mystery.
On sized paper,
iron gall ink and green paint
burn through brittle books.
Within this library, I imagine
all manuscripts have man-made halos
over their gatherings of angels.
In the old days, women carved cherubs,
whole, in their belly bumps,
an archive, bound safe from red rot.
