THE/A TRAIN

A honey badger’s skin can

withstand multiple blows

from machetes, arrows,

and spears, but these rusted

weapons haven’t killed

anything in years, so that may

be the lesson there, that

there is no there there, like

many poems, like many

revolutions, and maybe there

isn’t a there there in many

people, only that foggy

anachronistic lizard eye,

or what I have come to call

the part of consciousness

that builds impediments,

isolates, the “supertrump.”

Or what New Yorkers call

subways. Or what a King

calls a dream. Or what X

called Y. What the crowd

yells as lit, the Cave calls

dim. José can you see

in West Tejas a fancy

evening out is rocking on

the porch, ain’t they good

at irony, where watching

the fugitive moon runaway

takes days, like the time I

caught the C I hoped was

an A, and saw a butterfly

move in what I can only say

is protest. The wings

made small combustions

through the car. Eyes trained.

The awful is tracked by

awe. An officer lifts his

gun, yells to raise your hands

higher the TV flutters.

Watch it. They will

call you moth and kill you.