I ride an easy ticket to Frisco
to leave Phoenix and its sun,
salesmen, wearing friendship grins
until their gums bleed in the wind.

It’s no small thing to live, eclipsed
by the grains of sand and finances.

Dirty Dora climbs her chair, smiles
bold, gap-toothed, eating her lips
at passengers oiling their eyelids.

Birds clean their wings on thermals
dive bomb glass pebbles and tin foil.
Accepting gravity as destination.

Someday I’ll learn from Dora and birds,
and save my footsteps from the traffic
to write dirty words on the Salt Flats.
And pretend archeologists
will diagram my migration habits,
groom bedrooms for tombs of my fingerprints.

Then mark calendars, where laughter
sent rain to the jackets of Seattle.