The Dirt's Request: A Note to Pat Garrett

I

They chiseled the New Mexico moon
Out of bone last night
And the stars
The stars are nothing more
Than the dust
Blown by an indifferent chiseler
While the tar sits burning
Over the purple ground
Of this jawbone valley

II

 His boots still dance the telegraph, y’know
His back still warms the slab
You may have closed his eyes
But maybe they both insisted on staying open
Maybe they still stare that endless ceiling down
Or get lost examining
The backs of coins
Maybe you got lost
Retracing the map you drew
Across his body
Following each red line
Dipping your gloved finger
Into the hole in his chest
You always knew how to make an impression

III

　 You gave all your smoke to roses
Remember when
You split O’Folliard’s shoulder in two?
And the wound grew teeth and blew steam
In the winter’s chill
While his tea kettle blood
Chewed into his bed of snow
And he sunk onto the caliche mud
That had froze itself into a marble hall

He had nothing but an unrealized kiss
In the barrel of his gun
“And a good goddamn to you.”
Is all he had in his purse
Nothing sadder than unrequited love
In such a harsh land
Someone always gets hurt

And as you smoked a cigar with him
Your mustaches were crawling with ants
A mass of twigs arching your upper lip
A series of scribbles
A collection of chicken scratch
So you stopped looking into the mirrors
That had replaced his eyes
And you wiped the blood off his lips
No sense him dying
While looking
Like a painted
Whore.

IV

　 Who could mollycoddle the bottle
Like you did?
Raised the little bastard up as your own
Spoiled him
Recited poetry down his neck
Hummed hymns into his glass ear

You tried to read your augury in his golden blood
But you just saw the Kid
Trapped in the fibrous of your eyes
Trapped in your bottle
So drink the Kid down
Pour him right into the hollow of your gut
Just try and keep him down

V

The moths don’t circle lanterns no more
in Lincoln
And Bell don’t track mud
On the jailhouse planks
No more
No, Bell sleeps cold
with a chest
Of broken fish bones
Snapped and ground
Into shards of rib
Into fine powder
Into bone dust
Yes, bone dust
A dash
of pure cane sugar
A handful of stars

When the Kid turned his shotgun to the moon
And fired
It took the pellets a whole night
To make a madman’s arch
and fall back down to earth
And now the sun rises
On the horizon of Ollinger’s shoulders
Behind a thick, healthy foliage of smoke

When they found the rest of his skull
The pieces of egg shell
And the slugs of flesh
And gathered it into that coffee can
It tried to ask for a drink
But they hadn’t found its tongue
And who ever talked without a tongue?

VI

And where were you?
Collecting taxes
Smuggling flasks into church
Underneath a shoulder holster
Mouthing a .44 Colt
(You never were one for cartridge belts
Such a feminine way to carry bullets
You thought
All toggled in red leather
Bejeweled in shells
Like some gypsy whore)
You weren’t no Cath-lick anyway
You did it for Apolinaria anyhow
It is true
You tried to be good for a while
But the law needed you
And you wouldn’t want those
Pecos whores to go hungry
Besides

VII

You saw the world form in a droplet of water
I saw the history of man slither down your arm
The tree of life dug in his gut
Curling through his ribs
Sprouting up his chest
On branches of wet hair
And as you gave the ground
Your golden necklace
Brazel gave you thoughts you’d never had
 planted them right into your brain
Drilled the words right through your skull
And bone dust
Puffed
And roses
Smoked
And your face jerked into the grin
You used to get
When you would talk about the Kid
When they would ask why you done it
Why you had to
Do
What you had to
Do
“What can I say?”
You’d say
“The dirt just wanted him more.”