By Rod Peckman
I fucked my way across Nevada.
Pinions and sharp mountains,
vistas you’ve never even imagined.
I saw thirty miles of sage
crash against glass granite peaks.
You cannot understand this.
Can you understand this?
without seeing it all in this purple light.
An opening sky like a bad dream
that wakes you in sweat and fear,
loose limbed and primed for abject desire.
I so fucked my way across northern
Nevada. I was hard from Winnemucca
to Wendover. Well, I tried, honey, know how
I tried, but it came to nothing at all.
These fears you hold may have been true:
if I had only known your sickening doubt,
I may have confirmed your wildest suspicions.
I did not, my one true love, fuck my way
across the majesty of Nevada—
though I know you wish it were not so,
that you might sleep in peace knowing
I had somehow betrayed you, allaying
the anxiety of separation.
Clutching at Straws 