Late summer, 1980 and I'm not yet eight. This means that my aunt Julie is eleven, and my brother Steve is still just three. We live on an acre lot along a country road where the neighbors are far and few. To an eight-year old, one acre is a small empire. Julie runs the kingdom; we are her vassals. In August and September, cattle from the nearest realms wander into our territory, lazily but imperiously chewing our royal grasses. They are huge; we must fend them off. After we've chased them with sticks, Julie makes us engage in training that involves dipping the chasing sticks into still-warm mounds of cow shit and hurling it at each other. Steve gets the worst of it. Then, stinking, we duck into the log cabin that grandpa José built us. Julie lifts the rug and removes a Playboy. Ola Ray is on the cover. She is naked and brown on the inside and even though I don't know what I'm looking at, I know what I'm seeing. Outside we see ducks on the lawn. When mother calls us in for dinner, she hoses us down on the back deck, admonishing us for mucking in filth. I'm astonished to be young, to be alive in my kingdom, this bright and filthy home.

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Before the Wars

 

Exhilarated, we walk to the ocean

Write letters to the Gods

Find a thing, and another thing between

The rain that never stops.

 

I hold your hands and hang on your neck

Every mole in every grassy field

Pops up to see

There are windows beyond these

 

Lighthouses make scenery and sea caves

Welcome us in.

We're every day every one of us

Perishing in the howling sea

 

Glowing your face, your horrible eyes

Crying the starfish in the unfathomable deep

Call us in.

We don't exist and we swallow the sirens

 

Who tempt us with their ugly canticles

We cackle and crinkle our eyes

Our mouthparts, our human antennae

And beyond the killing ranges like a hymn

 

And beyond our ancestors carry on as if

Nothing has ever happened

Nothing will ever happen

There are opportunities and photographs

 

Documents that document a fancy mess

The only patriots are folks without a country

So go on, party in the USA

Solder my mouth to yours. We dare not speak.