I cried my eyes sore worrying over that girl,
coming home all hours of the night. I know
them boys. They'll look for all the world
like something worth a life. All show
and no go, my own Mama always said.  
Sometimes I look at her and feel this fear
opening inside me like a mouth. That dread
like a warning only a woman can hear.
What if that girl never gets out of this place?
I know them boys. I married one of my own.  
Nice enough. Smart enough. An honest face. 
From here, o'course. I've always known
he was the home place being built for me.
Home enough. Life enough. You see?
                        

I want to own what little I own 
outright. Y'know? Not owe
tomorrow's work today. This way

I'm lighter than what holds me here.
Don't get me wrong. I plan to stay.
This little town's as good as any other. 

But I'm the kind of man needs an escape.
A running truck, a woman I won't mind
bidding goodbye to in the rearview mirror.

Want a steady man? Try my brother. 
He was always hungry more than anything.
There's not a credit card he hasn't signed.

Here I am, for now. This shithole town.
Home's wherever money weighs you down.
                        

She had a man. They lived alone behind
the turned back of the world. They lived
alone around the edge of things. Rooted
their muffled way through long days. He
called her baby and sometimes come here
and sometimes you stupid bitch. His smile
a canyon filled with small bones. The cold
world was her old man in the cold shade
of his old grave whispering darlin’, dance
with the one that brung ya. Move in the
shoes that first rawed your heels. Nothing
fills silence like a dead father’s voice. Or
a single rifle crack she had a man. She
lived alone. Danced alone in the long shade
of his fear. They dug their way through life.
Baby, he told her, and he bared his teeth at
the air next to her eyes. If I ever catch you
with another man. He smiled like her father
when he caught her catching him slipping
his hand up her mother’s Sunday dress.
The theater of his teeth. She had a man.
Baby, he said, and her need for him was
a constant atonement of hands. His body
the earth. 		Her life a tunneling.