before it was fashionable,
stealing and burning; raising
General Hell from the stupor
he falls into if we let him. I left
a woman in Birmingham and
three dogs in Mobile; we’ll see
what shakes out in Memphis.
At Graceland, I hear, there’s
a butler answers the door
in his sweet time, in a dialect
native to Macedonia. It causes
a row among the boys, who
are hopeless with languages and
just want to go home, but won’t
without severance or a health plan
that includes dialysis. I’m
not even going to tell you that
the pool is kidney-shaped.
I can tell you this much:
in the swamp before a raid,
you couldn’t settle your mount;
they’d be twitching and snorting,
blowing the pitch of our high
out their muzzles in twin plumes
of steam, each a whistle marking
midnight, and every man horsed,
irreplaceable, and all too excitable.
one day at a time, we’d go;
time to roll out and get some,
then, before dawn
we'd get more.
