Haunting Santa Barbara

 

Oh look, Carrie says

at those... What do you call them?

next to the bananas...

Kiwi fruit, I say, from Australia

or New Zealand someplace

Michael, you're so smart

Yes, but look at the price, I say

Ninety-eight cents a pound

Scrooge McDuck, she says

and places three in the basket

like furry eggs in a nest of cellophane

 

The sun is starting to set

it's belly testing the cool Pacific

And I am at the window watching it

while Carrie is lost in a photo album

sitting cross-legged on the bed

 

When I was a little boy

I was afraid of everything

I was afraid that while sleeping

I would forget to breathe

and die

(my aunt who was nine years older

laid that one on me)

And I was afraid

that the world would end before I grew up

or the sun would die of old age

But the world is still here

I'm pleased to say

and the sun is waist-deep in water now

I can hear it sizzle

Or it might just be the wind

hissing through palm trees

or some other sound, some other

California static

 

Who's this? Carrie asks

This girl dressed up like a witch

on Halloween?

My cousin, I say, a few years ago

And this? she asks

Same girl without the mask

And this? Carrie asks

My ex-wife and daughter

my ex-daughter, ex-life

when I was younger

But now, Carrie, I belong to no one

I might even be dead -- who knows?

and haunting this place, haunting

Santa Barbara

Once, years ago

I sat beneath a bridge near Spokane

with three old hobos huddled over a fire

And the one named Idaho Joe

started calling me El Vaquero

because of the bandanna

and my scuffed-up boots

He taught me a little Spanish

and I thought later on I might disappear

into Mexico, just keep walking like Dean Moriarty

let the sun burn me to a crisp

or find a cave and live there

forever

But that was a long time ago

and forever is upon me now

and I can't even be sure I survived

 

And who's this? Carrie asks

turning the last page

in shadows on a porch, alone

Good God, it's you

beneath all that hair!

Yes, and I recognize that guitar

must have been ten years ago

you fed it to the Grand Canyon

watched it freefall in slow motion

It sleeps now with the fishes, you said

at the end of the Colorado