Now I'll read from the book of--
speaking of eyes, I'll read some more eye poems.
I love eyes, and fingers, and hands, and feet in my work,
and they find themselves in my poem so often.
So I'll begin with this poem that actually a friend of mine
asked me to write for him.
A friend of mine is a photographer.
And we were down in Mexico one time,
and we were walking down the street,
and we passed by this very unsettling scene,
very unsettling scene.
He took photographs of it and I didn't even dare look.
It was so troublesome for me.
It was awful.
It was ugly.
And then afterward, about a year later,
he told me that he had developed this these pictures
and put together a project.
And he wanted me, since I was there at that moment
when these pictures were taken--
he wanted me to write a poem as a companion piece
to this project.
And for a whole year I refused.
Finally, I was just so haunted by this image
that I decided maybe that's one way to dismiss it,
to get away from it, to leave it alone,
and let it leave me alone as well.
So I'll show you this photograph.
The poem is called "Horn."
"By the road in Guerrero a cattle cargo truck
stops at an incline with a flat.
Two brown bulls stand on the bed bound by the horns to a yoke.
Each captive, hoof bruised, and skinned at the talus,
depending on his partner for balance.
At the feet, a splash of blood fiery
as a spill of sudden bubbling down like lava.
A wound burning through the wood?
Not so.
The left bull's left horn broke and flew off
the head like a bottle cap.
Defected, the horn dropped into the brush,
biting through, tip down, making its first indentation
on its own.
Now, the bull's skull's left unplugged
like the puckered lip on a plastic baby made hollow
by an absent thumb.
Stone Anahuac gods have mouths that empty, that round.
This hole center is sticky as if the bull
had stuck its black tongue inside for comfort.
The way we tickle the missing tooth, gum.
Will they grow another?
The bull's left eye, panic struck,
doubts it, set ablaze with pain.
The head's third socket shocks him into thick paralysis.
The second bull doesn't move, contemplating a collapse.
He gazes at his partner, eye reflecting throbbing eye.
There is no seeking pity.
No screwing the horn back on."