With the other slash and burn city slickers
We went to see the sulphur sommelier,
The one who captures forbidden notes
From adjustments in the hot spring pipes
Of scents once inconceivable to quaff
To our rotten egg ancestors:
Root beer float, mulled Manhattan,
Cinnabar marmalade, orange grove at sunset,
The real sticky icky, because that’s how many
Toxins we carried through Oxnard and need to cleanse,
But when we got there, at the golden hour no less,
He was booked, it turned out, for months on end,
So we had to be content with picking white sage
At sunset, high up on a hillside crisp with flax,
Like we were someone else’s memories, and hadn’t
Seen the sommelier’s kind face and slower hands.
We were left with a mountain that eclipsed what we knew,
But it too came with a bouquet, bearing duende
At the rusted motor homes thrown past ends of streets
On Eucalyptus Ranch, where the horses have gone crazy
And the only people left who know what to do
Wait for the moon, so they might dance with a doom
That someone said would finally come through their old
Movie rooms like softer chairs. They were lost in the
wars,
Victims of the paradise of fake names, their yellow homes
And front yard stones couldn’t counter the choking
Feyness, of internecine nagging and mansplaining.
The curtains still are drawn late afternoon,
For when it comes it’s over. No forgiveness or explaining.
Here’s hoping for that long and dusty trail on up the
hill
Where wild animals and the end of the sky can still
Be seen – but not too clearly.
