Oh, Just a Book

After I'd sent her a picture of my mangled copy of Jim Harrison's The Shape of the Journey, she said "What the hell is that?" And then I thought of all the things and folks and places the book and I had crawled in and out of together. Or collided with. The lilac groves and liquor stores. Moss-covered skulls tucked in backyard. When not crunching gravel or giving birth to the four cold and sacred winds, it bleeds quietly on the oak shelf next to my bible. For nearly twenty years, I have crucified it.

mayflies on the gas pump---

all the theories

of this or that