New Mexico (Maybe I'm Starting to Feel a Little Bit Old)

mashing your face
against my face
makes me feel
whole again

our affection
knows no bounds
except some bounds

like I’m an AmeriCorps volunteer
who’s come to your Carlsbad HS
health class to talk about
environmental issues

and you don’t give a shit
about me or
my environmental issues
I lecture you we

disregard each other
the wan November sun
illuminates our desire
lost in the lard aisle at La Tienda

I’m searching for Horchata
but really searching for your eyes

you know the secrets of the best
tortillas how
the laundromat works in this
godforsaken town

oh god Amy
I want you so much
and that girl from New Jersey who
was mortally afraid of deer

oh let’s steal a car
a ‘78 Buick preferably and
drive it to Guadelupe
National Park don’t
TEMPT ME
I’ll crack into these barrels of
saltines and water meant for
surviving the Nuclear Holoucaust

*****************************************

oh a beautiful oasis with
sun dappled cottonwood trees and
swift-running irrigation ditiches
I can’t not touch the algae

the quiet absolute darkness of caves
of being eighteen

The one cave I really want to get in
Lechiguillla Cave, i can’t.
it occurs to me this is like a eighteen
year old wanting
pussy. no different.

sunbathing topless on
the top of water towers NOT
getting drunk with
the gang. building
a stone wall picking
up trash getting coffee at
the Carlsbad Caverns Diner and
being hit on by 40-50 year old
men. him talking about how
i smell like a virgin?

*****************************************

Alonzo. Where are you?
you’re not of this time but
could be. you have a sweet
doppelganger in Rajasthan. he
can’t be removed from his
natural environment he
wouldn’t thrive.

we fucked four times a day
left our mark on
your aunt’s carpet
that whole time of my life’s marked
by FUCKING men too inappropriately
old for me.
Easter Dinner with your Grandpa
followed by episodes of
the Fresh Prince of Bel Air

Hiking at Tent Rocks
trips to Jemez Hot Springs but
we never actually went camping.
I made you blueberry pancakes for
your birthday breakfast with
homemade orange butter

You sang in the rocks
me wearing a pink antique silk slip
very stinky beer cheese in your BMW
drinking at the movies

did you actually have two kids?
did you have other girlfriends?
were you lying when you said
you’d only slept with five women?

*****************************************

That was a dark trip up I-25
between Santa Fe and Denver
having to stop so folks could
get out of the van and puke
on the side, the shoulder

The best camping trip
in the Sangre de Cristos
up by Pecos
mountain meadows filled with
wildflowers and elk shit

drinking and playing cards
telling ghost stories
singing Guns ‘n’ Roses
to live guitar accompaniment

We hiked to the top of Elk Mountain
I saw my past and my future
I was not afraid I
faced it all without fear.