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.