This is a slightly more political poem.
It's called "Twice I Consider my Country."
A raccoon lies quietly in the sun,
trickle of a river between furrows of sand.
This is life it has need of water.
How rare to see one in the desert.
By glowing charcoal, bottle shot up
in the mouth of an Indian cave, the red opal of blood
at the temple of a raccoon, the Santa Cruz bends
from the highway and odor of processed sewage in the breeze,
I am looking for boundaries.
It's like crawling again.
Obscured by sunflowers, wild olive branches,
there paint gun only ribs in the sand,
1940 models, the war babies, show up the road.
I hear their dashboard radios blaring again.
This same old war, they shake as the cars keep coming.
They have not abandoned America, like the river, slowly,
they go underground.