Contraband

I am in one of the cells on the upper deck
just me and my Maglight, looking under steel bunks and thin mattresses for contraband.
Contraband is in my daily vocabulary.
Contraband could be a number of things,
cigarettes
drugs
weapons
ink pens
1 too many comic books.
There is a particular smell to detention,
institutional cleaning supplies and their failure to mask urine and all the lost things.
In this cell there is no contraband.
the Maglight shines on some dust in the corner,
what am I doing looking for contraband.
I went to art school.

I am sitting on the tiny front porch of one of the bunkhouses

end of july
kick up a little dust cloud with my boot
the wind, neverending whisks it away again.

I think I will name the mule Cassius.

I wrote a poem to my father in the summer of 1988

it was the summer that the Black Hills always seemed to be on fire, one fire so fierce, the smoke blocked out the sun. I wrote him this poem because I could not have spoken the words, my mouth could not form them. My throat tightened, and my cheek bones twinged, and the words would not come out. I would think them alone at night when I heard Claude working, sawing the cedar boards, nailing, sanding, making ready. My father had become so quiet, and I wanted him to know in words how much he was loved, how much he would be missed. There had to be some words. He would sit outside sometimes in the sun. That is where he was when I brought him my sheet of notebook paper. Maybe it was 12 lines or so. I can't even remember but a few of the words. Holes, coyotes, listen, howl. I don't even know what happened to it. There were words.

Would you like to live on less...

could you?