Watching For Sasquatch

Debbie is flagger for Great Basin Pipeline,
she puts up a sign that says SLOW
on one side and STOP on the other,

she spends the summer on Crane Mountain
making do with a tedious series
of brief and irritating relationships,

feeding the chipmunks, swatting insects,
watching for sasquatch.
Debbie spends the winter in Elko

at the Four-Way Casino,
feeding the slots, swatting cowboys,
making do with a tedious series

of brief and irritating relationships,
she puts up a sign that says SLOW
on one side and STOP on the other.

Debbie spends the night
watching for sasquatch.

Trouble in Mind

I walk down the beach and find a flat spot
between the driftwood and tufts of beach grass,
a good place to escape the frictions and nagging
irritations of life, the placid ocean

is three shades of green today, and foggy grays
that reach up and merge with the sky, wave tails
slide up the beach, seven sanderling skitter along,
pick, picking at the sand like pestering three-year olds.

Four miles down the Pacific Plate is rubbing
the North American Plate the wrong way,
and the Juan de Fuca Plate is push, pushing.
North America has no place to go, no walk in the trees,

no tavern with a stool and a beer, no quiet beach
with sliding waves and picking sanderling.
North America double kicks Pacific in the ribs,
Pacific shoves along holding its prickly side,

making achy noises. North America jumps up
and Juan de Fuca slides twenty-three feet under,
flat on its face, North America stomps back down
on Juan de Fuca’s neck in violent rock-melting rage

that troubles the placid ocean and sends the sanderling flying off.
North America stomps around until the fury subsides,
the sanderling find new picking grounds, the ocean quiets,
North America and I settle back with trouble in our thinkers.

To The Quail On The Highway

My sincere and deep apologies
to the quail on the Ravendale Highway
that scurried to safety in brushy shadows
on the right-hand side of the road

and then, for some inexplicable reason,
flew into the path of my truck,
and vanished in a burst of feathers.
I apologize to your children, your lover,

I apologize for not slowing, not stopping
to show respect for lost life.
Some day I too will fly
into a burst of feathers.