Mesa, Arizona

We passed 800 miles talking

Circles about living with loss

You said your sense of humor's

Always helped you get above & across

Every hurdle, every chasm,

Every shocking & unspeakable blow

Just proves the universe is chaos

So you laugh to clear the lump

From your throat

But if you're fixed on being bitter

Go be bitter on your own

We're still two hours from El Paso

Arizona's such a long way to go

The chemicals were coursing through

Our bloodstreams at incongruous rates

I was time-traveling inward through

A past life I can never erase

You were hanging out the window,

You said: We're just a beggar's banquet in space

You were laughing at the moon,

You were cursing it for wearing your face

Me & New Mexico are orphans

Or is it bastards? Either way:

I know a guy in Roswell

We'll hitch a moonride,

Steal you back your face

You sleep and whistle Blackbird backwards

While my eyes cut her name in clay.

You wake to Mesa, Arizona

Say, Let it go. She'll change her mind someday.

You took the wheel in Mesa, Arizona.

Said, I got the rest, man.

You can drift away.