Real Life

    Soon the electrical wires will grow heavy under the snow.

    I am thinking of fire of the possibility of fire & then moving

    Across America in a car with a powder blue dashboard，

    Moving to country music & the heart

    Is torn a little more because the song says the truth.

    Because in the thirty-six things that can happen

    To people， men & women， women & women，

    Men & men， in all these things the soul is bound

    To be broken somewhere along the line，

    That clove-scented， air-colored wanderer blushing

    With no memory， no inkling & then proceeds

    Across America

    In the sap green of the tropics，

    Toward the cadmium of a bitter sunrise to a new age，

    At the white impossible ice hour， starving，

    Past the electric blue of the rivers melting down，

    Above the nude¹， snuff， terra cotta， maybe fire，

    Over the tiny fragile mound² of finger bones

    Of an Indian who died standing³ up，

    Through the heliotrope⁴ of a song about the sunset，

    To live the thirty-six things

    & never comes home.