As Civics,
or Love on the Rocks

 
Dry.
Gulch City
dry.
Ghost town
dry.
Dry drunk,
down on luck
desert rat,
bow’ry bum, check-
in-the-mail, surviving on
cactus, rattle-boned,
rattletrap on blocks
in a yard of dust
threatening chainlink.
Carton of shells
for a shotgun
dry.
Asp sidewinding.  Drier than
dry.
Cannon powder, plastique.
Day you leave, day you come
back, slapping, clanking.
R.I.P., slam-bam-thank-you-
mam, man
no thanks dry.
Lost the farm, pounding doors,
boxcar-chasing, rail-riding.
Cardboard left out in the sun
to curl and die, and you
and I.
Dry as the River Styx.
Losing at cards, God’s Little Acre,
fleeing the ‘bowl.
Dust duned and a letter
from a toad.
Hallucination inducing wart.
Dry as the road Willie jotted
a song about, then another,
and another.  Put it on his stone.
On mine, put stick-in-the-mud
posing as writer.
Going for broke
dry.

(c) Phyllis Jean Green, August, 2007

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