Sin's Wage

A gal named Patti Joanne Topp is called Kitty by men who rub her the wrong way. And with crumbs of Sunday on their lips and too much cash on their hands, she lets them come and do whatever else they want.

She told me it's like how I steal things. Not for the devil's sake, but for getting by--to feed her little ones and pay their way. You can end up stuck getting by. She'd lost too many bets. And like boozing can turn to robbing, the gambling turned to hooking. Then she found a chunk of the Clearwater County Bank in my coat pocket and we fell in love.

But it wasn't enough. So I blew the safe in Power County. Then in Bingham and Fremont, God forgive me. I was running to buy redemption with the tips of hellfire between my toes. The cuffs caught me at a payphone. Didn't have to, but I wanted to hear her smile.

Of Queen's Claw Feet

Luke has left

devoured by bathwater

gone cold.

She remains

a feignwarmth

so gallant I

salivate a vein

in a leaf

nibbled by Earth’s Sol

in winter’s tight skin

bitten by scruff.

And I beg her to become

Ruskin’s Mythic Queen whose

hip I hold in hand to

till with my tongue and

pull the corners of

her lips all

pink and lovely
into my smile.

E's Cabin

Chump and churl am I

choking blood from the legs.

Locked knees, and all, y’know?

With the caps covered in

folded flesh

like a kid-licked bottom lip while

light-headed and hot.

I stand in the shower

hold M’sippi’s Mud

in one hand

memories of you

in the other.

Takin’ my sweet time.

Cicisbeo for palms to see

but a five-fingered picker

for the rest of ‘em

while porchin’ it

in the cold

rolled out in the mountains of

Idaho’s wolves and brotherhoods.

Smoke signals to the future

howled up from a “Haah!

Help-us-figure-it-out”

held in first to

hit the hardest.

Songs sent

to the outskirts callin’

home

the loose skin that

left us

alone.

I keep a’pluckin a knot of knuckled skills.

And we talk all about it

then we talk about it all.