WHITE BUFFALO: The Story of a Mayan Prince

BOOK THREE

WHITE BUFFALO: “There goes another refugee.”

[I don’t even remember who this love
poem is about]

You all taught me to not think.
Playing liar’s poker.
We’re all soaked in radiation.
Felito and his date got wiped
out in a bike wreck, and I knew
it was all over. Snow in June.
Ashes in the fireplace blow
over anybody, the dead are buried
and the wounded move on. A
turtle on its back, inertia,
like a deer hung up in a bob-wire
fence, Ted and I pore over Gardner’s
photos of a ravaged America,
Camp Fort Hell and Damnation,
razors in our boots,
studying a parade of saboteur shades,
bandannas on our skulls,
we part ways. I get a room
at the Inn at the end of the trail,
to mull on the res publica
and res pulchrae, which is nothing.
Ain’t no thing.

Paul McLean
February 1, 2010