Back broke, she is curled in the trunk,
Bruised blue on the edge of the pustule ooze.
In the midst of the tire-scuffed junk,
There are burns on her lips and a cigarette stump.
The desert is wailing like death,
Coyote banshees like screaming Comanches.
But her face gives no mention of sweat,
She’s a perfect madonna the lord has begat.
Over and under the silhouettes wander,
The face of black shadows has torn me asunder,
The lipstick an apple-red spell I am under,
My fortune is told on the rumblings of thunder.
And I find that I can’t help but stare,
As the officer kicks at some tracks in the sand.
The wind moves curled strands of her hair,
Towards the purse scattered out in the prickly pear.
There’s polish in small bits of glass,
But the sand is a jagged and tortuous thing.
A cold rigor-mortis curled mass,
Has cut to the depths of my eyes in a flash.
Sing-songing choruses cut from the currents and
Whistled no more on the lips in assurance,
The woman does laugh at my spirit’s procurance
Her body, and others, a simple disturbance.
Here, you are pitiless, loath to become,
And still you remain until reckoning comes.
She is carried away like as drawn by a breeze,
Her eyes bid me ponder what justice could mean.
What am I now to the cold of the ocean
The pull of its currents, the dark and the motion.
Where is my purchase on sand or my feet,
In the wake of the things I am destined to meet.
Please, oh my God, for my sake, for theirs,
For anyone’s sway that would cause you to spare,
Let me be near them, begetter, don’t condemn,
Don’t take my anguish or make me forget them.
I love you too much for the vacuum to draw you away.
I love every facet and shape that composes your face.
Remember, my love, that the void is abrupt and
My hands are not enough.
Shanty Town 