on the t.v. news mount rushmore
was covered with blackbirds
indians dancing
below
i’d just walked in
unpacked
diet coke
meat
conditioner
and a vanilla shake
i’d been careful of
a long time
it slipped
when i picked it up
to give to you

easter was over
slushy out
you were sitting in the armchair
by the sofa
still in your coat and boots from work
you stood up
sounding disgusted
and actually i agreed

these
were stupid
things
to buy

all sticky
all over
the carpet

you don’t have a
good enough sponge ned

you looked down at me
then changed your mind and laughed
and opened the fridge and closed it and went back
to the chair

i love your hardness
it makes me all right
reminds me of something
a long time ago
but i just couldn’t have your baby
is what i tried to send
into the back of your head
out loud i said the change
was almost six dollars
i’ll put it on the counter

at work you were writing a report
for the south dakota department of transportation
about having dug up the oldest arrowhead
in the lower 48 states
the summer before,
when we met
“it’ll probably take fifteen years
to finish, but that’s pretty typical”
you said in the interview
for the rapid city journal

for some reason you let me stay in your bed that night
and even kept the radio off
but still it was hard to sleep
a car was tearing down mount rushmore road

we heard glass

and then birds

it was spring

I think his name was Dave.

He was about five feet tall, maybe 110 pounds, wore cords and acrylic sweaters, and had to have been in his late 40s or early 50s. My journal says he was a bad speller. He came into the cafe practically every day that winter. Gia said he had a PhD in Roman history and was unemployed in the winter, but gave tours of the Black Hills in the summer.

Tours were hard to imagine on him. I never heard him speak.

He had wispy copper hair that covered his head in places. His scalp might've had burn scars. He wore small round metal glasses and had moist lightblue eyes. His nostrils were red and peeling. His nose was large, sloping, phallic.

A good nose.

He looked like a crying twig. Like weakness. But had been in the area, unattached, for longer than anyone at the cafe knew. At least fifteen years, though my vibe was longer.


That didn't register as strength with me back then, but for about ten years after I left the state he clanged around in my head like a sweaty blacksmith god.


I know less and less, though, these days, what to make of anything. A lot of people are returning to their original sizes.



Except you. It had to have been about 300 feet, but I only remember you taking four steps, probably hungover, across questionable temps garbage-bagging tons of ancient campsite, to reach the Department of Transportation trucks pulling in to pour pavement, my first day in September.

You sent the mastadons away without killing them.



I'll keep that one.