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17 Beso the Jack Beso evades me to study the southwest gate. I think he wishes I was an ass, a jenny broadcasting pheromones wrapped in the menthol of Point Sal Sage. He reads the mood of my hand through the brush— the argument still raging with my first wife, the melting tenderness when my granddaughter says, I miss you Papa, into the telephone. He’s assessing my frailties in case I get in his way. 18 Husk Beso I fear Beso. His ancestors read lions, hyenas, skillful men, and worked out the escape, or counterattack, as a herd with snorts and stomps. I touch Beso’s body and feel the weathered lumber of a long abandoned barn— rusted tools inside, tractor, two owls. His mind may have fled deranging solitude too far harrowing empty grasslands for the others. I attend the husk of a jackass, quiet as a landmine, who could bolt from his nightmare and kill unwise dog, horse, or man. ...

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