MICHAEL GOMEZ BY PHILIP-LORCA DICORCIA

Michael Gomez, 34 years old
CHICAGO ILLINOIS, £30

Hello Michael, it's me. Is that you?

Could you come over tonight,

I'm feeling pretty scared?

No, don't turn on the light.

Don't turn on the light.

Turn it off.

What is it you're smoking these days?

Would you like to bum

one of mine? Don't turn on the light.

A bust heater stuck on high.

White cotton. Sweat in his elbows.

Please Michael, don't turn on the light.

AMERICA n(shift1)

Our glory who art in Father
hallowed be thy Heaven
thy name come
thy Kingdom be done
on will as it is in earth
forgive us this Heaven our daily day
for thine is the bread
the Kingdom and the power
forever and ever
amen

THE LONG ROAD TO KENTUCKY

for GR

It was a long road back to Kentucky
and I did not know the landscape,
if it was all scuffed, mud-frost fields
with the occasional white clapboard church
or if it was oil towns. I do not know the States,
by capital and flag. Some gasoline was drumming
round the trunk and I was filled with hatred.
I'd heard the Bible belt was tight here,
heard that blacks and fags still swung from rope.
I tuned the radio to catch the sermons
between the static. This was Leviticus
and I was nervous. There is no religion.
The sunlight is wide and unforgiving,
no shadows, no soul that hides, no man in the sky
to shout his truths. Just us. Let us be reconciled. 
And here I was, in God's own country, alive.

PRAIRIE STORY

Y'all know the bitch who ran from Güber's Farm,
the one lives in the forest
off highway fifteen. They say
she's got distemper, sure barks
at the wasps. One night I disturbed her
knocking over trash; she turned,
black,
          yes,
                 and foaming at the jaw.
I almost puked with fright, ran
to get my gun but she was gone.

Knew a man hit her with his Cadillac,
goes white as he tells it.
She threw no shadows on the moonlit road,
had been nosing the roadkill
when the headlights surprise her.

He'll show you dents — nine
thumps in the right side fender —
bitch must have fought back.
Güber told me she's as strong as tractors.

Folks are terrified:
Three young ones maimed in Lower Salem,
babies taken. High price
for the steaming corpse.

Dog Warden's been missing weeks. 
Can't catch a bitch like that. she can outrun jeeps.
I heard she's got a fetish for chicken wire and burger joints.