Turtle Island

I went into the Maverick Bar In Farmington, New Mexico. And drank double shots of bourbon backed with beer. My long hair was tucked up under a cap I’d left the earring in the car. Two cowboys did horseplay by the pool tables, A waitress asked us where are you from? a country-and-western band began to play “We don’t smoke Marijuana in Muskokie” And with the next song, a couple began to dance. They held each other like in High School dances in the fifties; I recalled when I worked in the woods and the bars of Madras, Oregon. That short-haired joy and roughness— America—your stupidity. I could almost love you again. We left—onto the freeway shoulders— under the tough old stars— In the shadow of bluffs I came back to myself, To the real work, to “What is to be done.”