We wake
in a vagrant campground,
Similkameen to my left,
water shredded in long quick strips, and behind,
scorched into the desert hills, the massive bald K.
Coco has been awake for hours, performing
his morning stretches and witchy rituals to the
hidden stars; Mercury in retrograde.
In tree pose, he pisses
into the rock-strewn waters, watching
his urine steam and cool and join
with something bigger, become anchored
to the river with the last few shakes.
The wind has torn
my pegs loose from their home,
and by the marsh, amidst
stones and sagebrush and dog shit,
crust punks rise from their hobbled,
blue plastic shanties, crack the first cans of beer,
poke at the firepit for cigarette butts,
pull on their patchy vests that read:
Disrupt. Earth Crisis.
Some, like us, are here to work the orchards —
most are here for the party.
Packed up, we make our way past
young Kale’s family trailer; past
stick-and-poked New York City Veronica’s moon tent; past
piles of Moosehead, Lucky, and Pabst; past
the curled, smashed and rusted
baby blue Volkswagen —
dead white flowers frothing
from the heap like spit.
Illustration by Lauren Simkin Berke.
from subTerrain #70
