Prescribed Burns

One day the pesero door hits me in the head, the toilet overflows and all I consume is Diet Coke and nicotine. The next I’m helping you pick out new wallpaper for your downstair’s bathroom, 

wondering what pesticide to apply to your lawn. 
So easy. Too right

For inside me the thief and beggar give way to the lover who flees for her life, with eyes closed and $5 in quarters in her fist she proceeds alone through airport security. The woman who stands at the bar with arms folded in front of her chest, head soaked in lime juice and Corona.

How do I explain that to her the murk of Mexico City air tastes better than Rocky Mountain spring water. That condemned brick buildings with bird cages in the windows are more beautiful than gray wood boxes that strangle the prairie. I heard that some good stories still exist in your world. With the buffalo gone the Mountain Clover no longer nests and rangers must prescribe burns to return the Prairie National Grasslands to its right height to encourage the birds’ return.

I wait somewhere in a picture frame,

haunting old cigar rooms with bad dope.

I am but the wisdom teeth in my jewelry box,

old pain you ought to forget.

Let me die like old Aztec gods

flint rubble forever suffocating in humid hand-scratched tombs.

Forget me beneath Eiffel towards and old lovers without scent.

Forgive me for schizophrenic ancestors, shortness of breath

rough elbows and lost maps.

Love me as one day whistling at a grand slam,

bright-eyed under a Memorial Day sun.

Take me as medicine, some venom, some honey

and one winter morning the burn of my cigarette ash will land on your tongue 
and I will return.