Shoo-Bop Shoo-Bop, My Baby

Beneath straight lines beneath limbo beneath
a still pulse you could burrow for miles

beneath the desert sand hour-
glassed this time the desert misses me

beneath all that, the Saguaro’s riddle
of bullet holes or pecker nests, a place to live

beneath the federal offense
you learned your lesson this time but still

you wear your pajamas striped,
your chonies pink beneath those black and whites

beneath a canvas tarp beneath the stars
under that galaxy of imaginary gods at play

their night sky fissure, their arrow torched,
while the sheriff swigs and laughs beneath it all

the familiar like familia like the mud-caked
and rusty faces of people without papers

you long to greet. Again the water. Hello stranger,
it seems like a mighty long time.

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