the valley of the kings

181 At the end of our joining, you visited my father without me, the road trip to Phoenix, when I thought you might ask him for my hand, make order out of the fractured past instead you hung out at his pool in Paradise Valley, met his girlfriend, shuffled the losses Back in LA, I built a wall of denial, good boyfriend, good father when really it was the same as always On the phone you told me how you had killed a snake in his yard, taken a shovel and beheaded it, slashed its body in ribbons on lawn too green for such violence, false forced vegetation in the midst of desert misspent heroics / benign species, docile variety / a King maybe the valley of the kings Gretchen Mattox ...