I sprang fully-clothed out the loins of a hewn,
mossy stone in the garden between cucumber
vines planted by spinster Aunts, Gladys and Trixy
Calhoun. Where's the chuck? First words

in the grave and marbled light,
the light that shines and polishes
the river outside Elk Point, South Dakota. A burger,
a bottle of beer, I prayed to my Aunts, G & T.

Perhaps I looked to misdirection in the hour-
glass, some sleight of sand, no matter the gods
one chooses to believe. I chose to come to the misses
always; they beckoned, always the dill in a pickle.
Smoke and mirror. Time, youth, sagacity, age:

"Green Corn, come along cholly," I shouted, and lit
out down the gravel road to Sioux City, searching
for the perfect hamburger, already certain birth
and death were constructs, abstractions, little else.

Not once did I look back, not even when television
crews followed like Raggedy Ann and Rather
dolls, shoving forever microphones and lenses
in my way. Like poor mad Van Gogh, I wanted

only to unpack the starry night and work it,
re-make the lie. Half a century falls, a pittance--
I admit some slight affinity to Peter Pan but oh,
so much more for Tiger Lily. Have I missed

what's gone, what happens next? No, I think
not. I fold places real as memory; a flophouse
in Butte, old miners and cowpokes, Three-card
Holy Joe, Copper Billy, the rest of the boys,

into my kit. I respire living & dead alike, the in-
between prestidigitation. Light plays against the flow.
Fifty years and more dining; in small town
cafes, roadside taverns, county parks at dusk,
pouring Heinz red on toasted buns. .

.

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