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COYOTES

the split feather tattoo

I got in Chicago back in 97

I knew the artist from Sturgis

the year James forgot the “R” in Sturgis

and the guy went home with a “Stugis 95” tattoo

after her needle finished pounding the ink into my skin

it was well after midnight

and the endorphins were all played out

we went out for breakfast

A diner that the night cabies used

its murmur of tongues and clatter of plates

the distant rumble of the L

souls seeking comfort from the din

under shades of light decades old

competing with a moon it could never know

windows of ceiling height

offered up the perpetual soul of the city

the shadows on the cave wall

with all the rags of people

who wandered through the night

the hackneyed threadbare sullen

staggering stone worn souls surrendered

to an existence metered in minutes or millennia

the city crawled naked out of itself

bringing ghostlike flesh to the surface

pressed hard against the grinding stone

that sifts out the ancient strata

coin purse against coin purse

blood against blood

myth against myth

life tore off the edges

and stitched it back together

every few seconds

the city folding and unfolding

breathing in ways that recapitulate what was left behind

when we ceased to wander

all those souls falling into each other

for the Lakota a split feather signifies

“many battles “

I had died enough by then

I was no longer pretty or whole

the path had given its scars

the nostrums had pierced deep

in attempts to assuage

that which hovers to kill

  back out on the plains

I spit out the residue of my journey

the sun was setting

my dust softly settled back to earth

I rubbed my new tattoo and smiled ….

as I sewed another page into my soul

a coyote sang its’ lonesome song

somewhere behind me