USA

GPerkLake@aol.com 

Scrub Celebration

Okay, enchant us with seven balloons
and pastel invented at 30,000 feet
raising Albuquerque's dawn,

the moon on the other side
for any jet crashing through
a wayward cloud at the speed of stainless steel.

Yesterday, a bird tornado
on the panhandle plain foretold today,

so go ahead.
Prick you desert with buckhorn,
Beethoven, ironwood, Mozart.
See if we care;
see if those sharp white scratches
on your sky interrupt us;
see if the new world's symphonies

dance wildly on your spines
until our dog's ears stand straight,
his eyes fixed in a tilted head
wanting more from life,
more than a dog,
desperately ahead of himself
in lucid desert,
free to live and die.

I'll trade my Yankees cap
from Madison Square Garden,
native New Mexico bitch,
for the feather that blows control
into smooth breasted Winslow girls
and this planet's stretching music,
my home for the time being
with its high range lakes
and electric sun drops
probing mountain water
for common mergansers
that like gliders descend, descend
until just before landing
fly ostentatiously.
Never mind that I've covered your ground before
silent one.
Take me repeatedly,
helpless lover,
old age for youth.

It's my turn to drive 
and these Porsche Carerra sunglasses
squeeze me away from you.

© Copyright, 2000, Guy Perkins.
All Rights Reserved. Printed By Permission.