Autumn in Enigma, Arizona
So, my friend, a geologist,
pensioner, with great legs
shows me her snap-shot
of a large brownish bear
put-down by the sheriff’s deputy,
a marksman, with great legs,
just returned from Afghanistan.
The bear was mad with (this
is completely authentic) bubonic buboes,
but is now
just crumpled in a high desert
meadow— two men in bone lab coats
poking him with electrical wands— so,
I told my friend that she’s
probably not mistaken
about everything going wrong,
lately; by wrong
she means arbitrary, inevitable, absurd—
further, arriving at that
she really means, perfect.
That is to say
she fucked the young deputy twice
that night. She says, old man,
sing “go-beck-ly, te-pē.” A hillside
in Turkey. I say, O.K.!