Future Ship

Goodnight, Texas

68 Goodnight,Texas These fields belong to locusts— not every seven years, but every year.They cry out in shrill voices, and at night people sleep in Childress or Clayton or goodnight,Texas. i drive south from Denver through a country of adobe houses resting on sand like gutted boats. At dawn, the crying pipes down. By 8, oil derricks nod, probe the outskirts of busted towns. Through the Panhandle, cities thicken— “Dan’s Barbecue and Steaks . . . ”“The Last Corral . . . ” How will you fit into this calcified earth, this cowboy’s dream of Heaven? ~ ~ ~ i won’t pretend we were close. i’m half astonished that we’ve found each other even now on this cracked prairie near fortWorth. What a place to die. Was it shame or fear that bred our secrets, then hushed us like that bead of spittle soldering the lips of the newly dead? 69 Aren’t you the point i once departed, the blue wastage of my course? ~ ~ ~ You phoned once from somewhere past gibraltar, somewhere in the heart of theAtlantic, your voice scratchy and small surrounded by a vast silence. Your body floats, then fractures: legs first, then the eyes, torn by diabetes, absent limbs contrived of plastic to make you look good—one last time— in a blue suit. ~ ~ ~ Look, i’ve come this far to say hello. it’s noon.The sun rings off my hood like a struck bell. Somewhere your body waits, almost virginal, whole. Now the city hovers in the distance. The land swelters, scarred with wheelruts of old journeys. Pray for me, my father, too. We are far from home. 70 This page intentionally left blank. ...