I remember camping one night--
or several nights, in the Sierritas,
out here west of Tucson, and seeing a very strange cloud
formation.
It was strange in shape and color.
It was a peculiar pink color, and it also
looked like the head of a man drifting on the horizon,
with his head back and his jaw tilted up toward the sky.
Well, this boiled in my head for a couple of years, as I recall.
And then I was reading Chekhov, and something
coagulated in my head.
And the poem is titled, "On a Line by Chekhov."
The intentions are revealed, and the designs needle
like thistles bunching in the blood.
Shall we choke in the skirts of angels?
Once, abandoning ourselves to a land where the houses had
fallen, the cattle ran wild through the thickets,
bowels of virgins waving from their horns.
The ground wind and dust filled our britches.
On the 40th day, we saw a cloud.
Warriors head thrown back to the heavens,
watched his pink slit jaw drift off down the range.
That night, in the rain, scratched our knees,
waited for messages.