there is a point where we
give up on god and begin to build cities
and there is a point where the
cities end

there are highways and
industrial parks and
the children who play by the river

the ones who fall in

the factories that leak poison into the soil
and that when i kiss you
there is the taste of something darker

the weight of addiction

and when we drive without direction
on sunday afternoons
there is always the possibility of escape

there are the hills and
the trailers that grow in their shadows
and the abandoned cars

the smell of gasoline beneath
a dirty white february sky

the feel of it on your skin

my hands reaching out
or pushing away

nothing ever definite until
the story is told by someone else

Photography by Thom Carlisle

how long now since i
told you i loved you?

how many scars
hidden or exposed?

always a number between
one and one million

always a truth that
tastes like oil or ashes

and do you remember
the first time i apologized
and then the next time that i
hurt you?

what happens is that
we grow numb to pain

we live in the shadows of hills
or of factories
and we're always cold

there is always poison

someone's
twelve year-old daughter
dying on the day the
mortgage is due

and i have wasted
most of my life hating people
i will never be able
to harm

screaming about events that
cannot be undone

and maybe what i want is
just one more chance
to try and make you smile

a small grey light
from a neverending sky

the songs that you sing

the lies that were told

something promised maybe
and the way you laughed
and then how easily it
all came to an end

my father's ghost
walking up the stairs as i
undressed you in a
dark room

a woman on
the sidewalk crying

a man at the door with
a key

said the girl's suicide
wasn't his fault

said his wife
didn't understand him

looked past me to where
you lay naked on
the floor and smiled

told me a man was
nothing without prayer

on the edge of town they are
crucifying christ
and in the schools
they are murdering children

they are pouring the blood
of indians into the soil
just to see what grows in
this place of places and you are here

you are burying your father
or you are leaving your lover

you are watching
a storm approaching from
the west

the clouds
as they gather above
the hills

the air as it darkens
around pilate's hands

and what i want you to remember
is that history is just a car
speeding out of control

names are forgotten and
dates are changed
and poets are dragged through
the streets in cages

doors are closed against
the screams of young girls in
windowless rooms

the story ends as
horribly
as you knew it would