So I've got a couple of short poems here.
The next poem I read is one of my only Tucson poems.
So I thought I would read that tonight.
And it was written shortly after my son was born.
And as with many parents, I think
the first few weeks can be--
not always, but they can be extremely difficult time.
And they were for us.
And this poem came out of that.
For a while the first few poems I
wrote after my son was born all involved a screaming baby.
[LAUGHTER]
This is called, "The Nights."
"The screamer sleeps, inside.
The desert's wide awake: the mouse, the rattlesnake.
I've come out here to hide, behind our house,
below the riddled sky, afraid of what our bodies made.
To the south: Mexico...
These are the nights men run.
Guaymas before midday, a beach-town life...
I play it out.
Such things are done.
The Rincons seem like a stain into the paling east.
The borders are policed.
The wail, nearby, of a train."