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  • Beyoncé at Shootaround
  • Jon Davis (bio)

Marfa, Texas

The theme was sweat and gravelover time. The wind whipped upconcupiscent clouds. A beat picked up,thrumming through wiresat the west edge of town. Somebodysomewhere was unpacking turquoiseand pink cowboy boots. Someonewas laying in stock at The Get Go.The residents were still recoveringfrom Sonic Youth, who’d whippedthe town briefly into a growtheconomy. Close call. And nowBeyoncé. Well, there’s no law.So she partied, legend has it,at the Chicken Coop, touredthe Chinati Foundation, askedthe same dumb tourist questions:Why? And Okay, then, how?Here in West Texas there isa long tradition of crushed cars,so, naturally, they crushed a fewfor art. The two in the ballroomhad been caught in a slow kissfor months, and now the damagefrom this sort of behaviorwas clear. This lust will crush you. [End Page 131] As will the sky, the dust, the wind,all relentless in their ambitions.But all I know is her name.That she sings, maybe acts,is certainly wealthy, allegedly beautiful,though today during shootaround,Tom said he’d seen her, said,No. She’s not so hot. AndJuan snapped the reboundand fired back his change.Shit, he said, you don’t likenothin’ that’s not white. [End Page 132]

Jon Davis

Jon Davis is the author of nine collections of poetry, including Preliminary Report from Copper Canyon Press. Dayplaces, which he translated from Arabic with the author Naseer Hassan, is forthcoming in 2016 from Tebot Bach Press. Davis is director of the low-residency mfa program at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

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