early summer—
the privacy
of rain
 

machine-gun fire
the cassocked priest scampers
to a nearby mosque
 

The Flint Hills

The flint hills of Kansas in the rain. As a young man I rode out of Beaumont in a yellow slicker, rain cool on my face still raw from making love. Bare hillocks of flint under freezing rain yet we called it God's Country, when I was young on the land, long before I ever heard of this fucking disease.

    through the slats
eyes of the cattle being
    taken away