Before he wrote his regrets
On the back, apologies for not seeing them grow up,
Their father must have crouched down
In the cold December desert sand
To frame his two grown sons, their four boots up
On a table they trucked down from town,
Two chairs, too, and a half-gallon of rum
In the half dark, both waiting for something magic,
Maybe some Mexican waitress, to bring them another drink.
In their background wires thick as a man’s fist pulse
With juice bound for Las Vegas.
The boys watch their father’s failing smile,
His spirit slipping down like chair legs into sand.
He regretting his lost chance, his boys’ loss, the wonders
Of the young & etc., and the boy on the left
Is already looking beyond the camera
At the truck he bought and paid for.
It’s gray and the flawed paint is peeling and behind it
The vast valley yawns like the jaw of a prehistoric ocean,
Which it was, crocodilian and omnipotent.
A distant sun rises over the hills’ knuckles
To the southeast, pouring light down the hill behind him
in a great wave, curling at the lip:
He holds his breath while he waits for it:
The picture is snapped up and the days of his future begin
Passing over him like water.
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