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and I can’t stop and Lashandra finally turns away.

These Recent Beheadings
    These recent beheadings are just what we’ve always dreaded. We knew it was coming sooner or later and now it’s here. Ancient gleaming steel coming down like a message from the heavens on our exposed white necks. The kind of separation that terrifies us the most—losing our heads. The absolute shock of sudden separation. The body here, the head over there. And the mind desperately darting between them, trying to pull them back together. How did this happen? From out of nowhere. Seemingly. Nobody saw it coming. Nobody could predict this. Not in 1957, anyway, when Chevy came out with that great fin on the Bel Air, and Little Richard was just hitting his stride.

Classic Embrace
    They were having a conversation about Marlon Brando in
One-Eyed Jacks
. He remembers that much. He can see it in some motel room with a fire, off the coast of Santa Barbara; the Pacific crashing outside their window. He remembers her saying: “Remember how he lied to the beautiful señorita with the red hibiscus in her hair?”
    “Oh, that’s what it was—hibiscus?”
    “Yes. That fancy red flower she wore just above her left ear.”
    “Oh,” he must have said, “but what was the lie about? I don’t remember him lying.”
    “Yes, don’t you remember, he tells her there’s something in her eye. Some little fleck of something. He makes that up and she believes him. She starts blinking just from him suggesting it. Then he unties the bandana around his neck and slides over close to her and starts gently poking at her eye with a corner of the bandana.And, as he’s doing this, he casually slips his arm around her waist and before you know it they’re locked in a classic embrace.”
    “But that’s not a lie, that’s just plain old seduction,” he remembers saying, and just as he’d said that he remembers something failing in his eyesight; colors dissolving, shapes disappearing, the foreground suddenly receding into flat smoky sheets.
    “Is that when you first noticed you might be going blind?” she says.
    “Yes, I think it must have been. But I do remember that flower.”
    “The hibiscus?” she whispers.
    “Yes, I remember that flower hovering over her ear.”
    “Like a spotlight, wasn’t it?” she says.
    “Yes, but I don’t remember him lying, to tell you the truth.” They roll over toward the fire and he enters her from behind.

Alpine, Texas
(Highway 90)
    I would come untracked, is what it was. At least, that’s the way I see it. Now. In aftermath, so to speak. Disorient. For days it would come and go like that. Days and days. Wake up in some sheetrock room where the train shook the roof off. So close to the window you could reach out and lose your whole arm. Take your breath away. It did. Tucumcari. Kalispell. Abilene. Patriotic wallpaper. Blues and whites. Liberty Bells. Cracked plaster. Everything. Peeled right through to where you could see the old slats and newspaper insulation dating back to the late twenties. Those funny button-looking hats the gals all wore. Model Ts and pinafores. Headlines about the coming Crash. Was it a rendezvous or something? Some kind of secret meeting-up with someone? I wasn’t sure. Lost track of the reason for being there. Days spent trying to track down license plates. That one with the orange Grand Canyon for instance. Perfect clue. She must’ve been an Arizona gal. Who could tell by now? The way I’d just be wandering around looking for hints. Sometimes the faint sound of a bird was enough to tip me off. I’d head out across the ancient zócalo at dusk, crossing the broad Avenida Dolores del Río, following this song into the darkest night. But mockingbirds can fool you for sure. That’s theirgame. Confusion. Diversity. Magnolia melodies sweet enough to take you in completely. Total seduction. And they’re free of guilt to boot. No qualms at all about breaking your heart in two and tossing you out