OK.
Just to prove that my total concern isn't about death,
this poem--
I also have a poem about fold-out girls in Playboy,
along with the rabbi from Albuquerque.
This is an Albuquerque poem though.
And it happened in June when I was out watering flowers
in a terrible dust storm.
I don't know if you have dust storms around here the way
that we do in Albuquerque.
Well all of a sudden, out of the Sandias,
come this fantastic tornado-like thing.
And the dust is swirling, so thick like clouds,
and it's difficult to see.
But I decided I would just stay there and just
keep watering the flowers.
And all of a sudden, along came this
the spiraling piece of paper.
And all of a sudden, this Miss July
just unfolded herself before me.
And I knew that this was a poetic moment.
And so I rallied to the occasion and wrote
a poem, which I call Miss July.
Hot sun, dust storm, heaviest clouds, the dust,
suddenly a full page nude floats end over end to my feet.
I continue watering the fire wheels.
The dust is like smoke.
The girl has seen hard use.
She has come from the Arroyo.
Her thighs are welted by Earth and fine stones, animals
perhaps.
She smiles from a face above large gourd-like breasts.
Her body, except for the pelvis, is tan.
This has been her summer.
Moving from an unclad shelter to shelter,
casting one large bright idea.
Now, without domestication, she comes
to a strange man who has no place for her, who
must water the parched Earth, keep the damn sand out
of his eyes the only way he knows how.