Gillian Welch

fucking out of sight
drive into valley where I can sleep out every night
and who would have wondered what might have happened before
then when we were all but children destroyed
in our own basic conspiracies
adrift in ketchup and napkinned essence ruined in salty beer stuff
to hold us against ourselves stuff to let go of into night.
peaches warm as fuck, love tendering barstool congratulations. we went
everywhere but sometimes we forgot what to do and keys left us over
alright? alright. okay I say, I say ‘okay!’ move, as much as necessary
lover boy loved a boy loved certain albums and certain music and certain friends
the anti-thesis of violence is courage something tim obrian probably instilled
early the bravery of running away what he learned at the Canadian border river.

my first lover was a tall woman a woman taller than me and a worker: an executive
director as a point of fact I left home at seventeen
only for university which is always a big joke. a big hoop. lunatics run

everywhere.

ii.

quicksilver girl / then
she’s free

iii.

surfer party: whiskey boats
a veteran partier
a southern catchall
do you remember?

iv.

cash family house
leave me alone
hold on I’ll buy you something

v.

dixie beer
company of strangers
discouragement
when your best friend tells you you
suck

vi.

of course naught

vii.

seven.

viii.

at times at night I stop to think what might have happened if I had never left home
at all but rather assumed an identity apart from politics such as those who breeze over counters;
cie la vie: those who abandon those who don’t. steel muggery; fucking

on sinks.

VIV.

virginity loses itself,
not the other way around.
Shreve is no-one and neither are you.