By Dawn's Early Light
at 120 Miles Per Hour

October 9, 1967
for Che Guervara

The toads sing at sundown
long, rhythmic chants
like the clapping of shoes.

Hoot owls light the sky.
Roosters molt in the jack-pine
turning blue.

I camp in the snail's track.  Small
veiled girls seranade my night,
their soft bones turned
fodder for the goats.

The mountains are hardest
trails like polished eyes.

I slake my thirst on the lips of tigers,
rest in the throats of hummingbirds.

                                                     In La Paz
I sell my teeth for beetle's wings, trade
radios for gunpowder,
assemble bombs.

I visit Beirut.
400 Moslems shit and belch-up fisheyes;
in Terre Haute they crush my hands,
castrate the horse,
flog my mole til his asshole pops;
Dallas buries my tongue,
hangs my skull in dormitory windows.

I keep to the backroads.
My eyes leave a slick trail on your bedroom doors.
Your plumbing's jammed with my clenched fist.
I'm under your collar
burrowing along your spine.