I am in Tempe without beliefs, and

without the patina-slick penny I

picked up, Abe-first, near Dallas. 

I don’t care that there is no one here

to call for a one night respite, 

for refuge. Dark hours are puzzles. 

The solution is to fill up my lungs

with gravel air as I drive 

through the desert in a well -

mauled pick up, with a neon dildo

in use. A protest fire licks

my dick. I smoke Sam Shepard’s 

broken pen I bought in Manhattan. I am

not a contradiction. I am not a defiance

of anything but simple minds. 

There are more moons than we see,

and more soft-lit beings to name. I

was born from their cushioned hips, 

their untouching, reflected light.

I burn alone in the red desert. 

My glow touches no one 

except a blind coyote. She comes to me

when I have staggered from the truck

to hurl humanhood to the wild. 

She sniffs my calf. She bites. 

I melt like sweetener into the world.