SALUTE

Is it ever going to come to pass
that someone in a uniform
asking me to do something I don’t want to do
is ever going to make me feel good.

WHO MAKES THESE THINGS WE BUY

When I was too young to dress myself
my mom used to let me pick out my accessories
from the nature store at the mall
that sold crystals and magnetic rocks
and pins that looked like actual black widow spiders.

My favorite thing then was bolo ties,
the kind that fancy colonels from the civil war had,
with the two strings draped like a folded shoe lace.

I had five or six of these
each with different animals or rocks
where the tie knotted around my neck.

I don’t know what my fixation was.
I didn’t grow up in the southwest
and I had never seen any of these ties
in actual rotation on cooler role models
who might have inspired me.

I guess I just liked the idea of being
able to wear a poisonous bug
as if that was the coolest possible
function an article of clothing could have.

My best bolo tie
had a baby scorpion
claws drawn as if on the attack
encased in a bubble of hard plastic
and frozen for all time.

I wonder if that scorpion’s family
ever thought about where their child went off to.
Probably in their wildest dreams
they wouldn’t have guessed
“hung around the neck of an uneven-toothed
nine year old, dressed up for Christmas photos
and proud as the day is long.”

CRIMSON

Hooray for old women
in the check out line
who dye their hair
those frightening shades of unnatural reds
the color of cough drop packages.

Not fooling anyone
just keeping up with the rituals
as if in these final years
it’s the hair that’s really going
catch people
and spin ‘em right around
on their asses.