with turquoise hanging from your touch
with the rainwater draining down the alley
with my borderwalled silence and lackluster luck
with the gnats hovering over fresh pastries
with the dead Indian’s face on the side of the mountain

with songs of dying hacking tuberculosis
with devalued paper cash and coins punched with holes
with nuclear waste snaking down the Colorado
with Villa looking like Capone looking like Escobar
with strippers offering you sixty for both, out back

with the radio saying, Lemme make ya, baby, yah-yah
with poems that are only not bad in the collegiate anthologies
with the river rising and missiles pointed to Copernicus
with poisoning rats when there’s no holding nature back
with long haired sluts becoming short haired sluts

with the grackles eating styrofoam off the pavement
with your socks up high and your blue skirt short
with necessity and hollow eye contact through the mirror
with reprimands and convictions of staying in school
with a red plum blossom cigarette on your purple lips

with solstices and equinoxes and divine blanks to fill
with the tulpa of the young girl you used to be
with lovers that kill themselves in the moment
with government secrets leaking like a bulging cow’s utter
with solitude like a shapeless ghost stealing over me

with disproved encyclopedias and rumours regarding King David
with secluded trailer parks reserved for the albinos
with regretted tattoos and another lower back ruined with a tattoo
with Atlas wanting to take a piss real bad
with the world as a stage featuring disguised dancing devils and a droptuned lyre

with the fruit of the tree filled with MSG
with politicians lifting up all the summer skirts
with the light bill needing to be paid in full by the 3rd, or else
with weeping pop stars and the few virgins content
with scholars dismissing everything out of the streets

with electronic impulses and ac/dc tendencies and a slow collapse
with holding in breaths of jasmine and lavender
with drugtowns and ghoststores and never pulling out
with bloodstains replacing wedding bands
with starved writers striking it rich after the fact

with a big assed Eve wearing a thong and stilettos
with the serpent tarred and feathered
with gangs of children carving out swastikas on mesquites
with Adam having ribs at the barbecue joint
with a toll booth at the entrance of the Garden

with sincere and maniacal gestures of affection
with stars and stripes from here to there
with shotguns in Aspen and yawning ice caps
with foreign smiles and dots instead of dashes with her number
with our eyes waning like the cycle of the moon