1

This whole fucking project would be near easy
if he just fucking knew what he wanted.
But I sit here and sat there and spat on the windshield
and not one drop of rain got us further –
just falling with shadows cast on the seat
tiny dimples in unblemished upholst’ry
Remember when she sat there?
The veins of a leaf are the roads that I drive on
and nature has no destination.

The office is there, that nodule of cellulose,
that auburn spot is my house;
patches of green are businessless, nowhere,
stuck in between nature’s paths, preset and programmed,
perfectly carrying out an order
that no one has given and no one has heard.
For all its harmony and collective activity
no intention can be found, no free-will or proclivity,
for nature know no destination.

The leaf is trapped on the glass in front of me
the tinkling and cracking of drops in late day
the flat light and grayness make the green all the more
And where was I, when did she sit here?
I missed the office and I’m driving away.

2

I want to remain in a constant state of hunger
until this thing blows over.
I need the weight gone, and climbing to the top
I need the air, the water, and the desire.
The tower will not stand.
I told him I was going, and he told me it was nothing,
but he had not the youth to permit it.
So I left that day (the sun greeted me out
on the green lawn near the dusty yellow road.
Amazing how grass in a desert wind grows
when you water and water and water.)
Now the road chokes on dust and me with it,
I can’t see the way for the bees.
And nowhere, not nowhere, can a man sit down
if he is not in a constant state of hunger.
Rest is a motion, a noise, a momentum,
unchanging as it carries you onward.
I would like to get off, driver – but he looks away,
and through Arizona we leave behind the day.