at Snively Hot Springs, on the Owyhee River, Oregon
Morse code in the sky
bird braille
feel the air
feel the water
Sulphur stinks only from afar
eyelid hills soothe me
golden sunshine dazzles the bathers
your silhouette, reflected in the stream
steam rises in clouds
lens-shaped drifts in the starship world:
Mars surface, red stink
skunk sneaks over the silver surface.
Antisemitic jokes taint the river.
You, and I, my love, my wife love,
we are not altogether safe here.
They whisper around us.
Why is my hair so short? No cancer, no. The queer.
The queer loft of water vapor, rising.
The air. The water. The natural. The herb
medicine. Pot slinks to my nostril, twitches like a
black-and-white beauty behind the rock.
Whispers, and the queer, and the stars
one and another high up in the sky behind
bald sun dark sun cloud
lost baby bull brays in the road
