The man in the starry tie
   led me talking backwards
   across the waving chips
   i spoke fantastic, like a prophet
   like a piece of blood
   where no doors are
  
   and weary now i set upon the good year
   and the wrench
   wrenching out of me every
   ready of light
   that i might get it right
   and walk away
   into the metro sunset
   the golden metro may
  
   and now across the plains
   take your child
   the highway sign, banana trees,
   windows parted and hoping
   see the flat faced delicatessen
   sweeping up the afternoon
   pick up little pieces of meetings
   and on your way
   here is the donut shop
   here is the early morning light
   where i would drool in chlorine
   yes here is the early early mornings i spent training
  
   and here is the highway
   chasing 'j's' out on his empty skin
   looking for license plates
   and liquor stores
   over there is new mexico
   and down there is corpus
   you can find my mother and me wrapped up in a warm
   scotch on the rocks
   the numbing ice of each others eyes
   looking just like now
   for relief
  
   there is no direction but past
   every thing else is passive
   but if you would seek me
   seek me there
   in a field
   or a gas station
   in my american mothers arms
   before she is too medicated
   to remember
   how to say my name
  
   say it gently, just once more
   for me mother
   with the sounds of trucks and distant trains
   with the gold sticks
   and the burnt skin of prayer
   bathe me once again
   in hot oil
   silence and long, long days
   car keys and dash board lights
   bears in the garbage
   that sweet honeycomb
   of memory
   don't weave the web too tight
   don't catch me tonight
   speak to me in cool lines
   the steering wheels turning
   where ever we go
   dinner approaches
  
   the fire light
   of high beam and lipstick
   laughing the red midwest
   her curled curtains
   wild and a strand of me stuck in her mouth
   wet always an outsider
   to the cities i create
  
   the entire east comes upon me and i
   reeling in stars
   grip the wheel
   a good girl, really
   just don't know how to stop
   this thing