wry

[text ID: I will swing my lasso of headlights

across your front porch,

let it drop like a rope of knotted

light at your feet. 

While I put the car in park,

you will tie and tighten the loop 

of light around your waist—

and I will be there with the other end 

wrapped three times

around my hips horned with loneliness. 

Reel me in across the glow-

throbbing sea of greenthread,

bluestem prickly poppy, 

the white inflorescence of yucca

bells, up the dust-lit stairs into your

arms. 

If you say to me, This is not your new

house but I am your new home, 

I will enter the door of your throat,

hang my last lariat in the hallway, 

build my altar of best books on your bedside

table, turn the lamp on and off, on and off, on

and off. 

I will lie down in you.

Eat my meals at the red table of your heart. 

Each steaming bowl will be, Just

right. I will eat it all up,

break all your chairs to pieces.

If I try running off into the deep-purpling scrub brush, 

you will remind me,

There is nowhere to go if you are already here, 

and pat your hand on your lap lighted

by the topazion lux of the moon through the window, 

say, Here, Love, sit here—when

I do, I will say, And here I still

am. 

Until then, Where are you? What is your address?

I am hurting. I am riding the night 

on a full tank of gas and my

headlights are reaching out for