Singing John Prine in Jackson Hole
I have hated plenty of men like you:
ones with Telecaster hands,
and jiving James Brown
laughs.
You hug me with gravel,
the kind used to melt snow.
I’ve hated you like Teedman’s Thrift
where you bought the see-through shirts.
I’ve stepped on tiny moments in book
stores near the waking Bay, I
cried on pallets, you called your bed.
(the crawling Ear Wig
told me this was wrong)
This is where you made a home for us.
I’ve poured ink upon
the docks, where I still lie,
in Jackson.
The gray haired man with his family
around his neck,
He smiled at your stacked guitar cases
in the back, pointed a curious finger
at our banjo.
They asked us for a song,
And You reminded me not to sing “hell”
in “Angel From Montgomery”
as they filmed what they knew
of us.
They didn’t see so much.
Yet, I have burned off all the edges
of the breakfast made in Reno
and escaped from any Christmas
we felt near the pines.
I’ve quieted all the apparitions
in the west lands which hid
like leaves in my hair:
scratchy and unnoticed.
Somehow, even after mountains of time,
I keep the paper daisies you cut
from coffee filters with me.
In Jackson, they didn’t see the lake bed
where you and I took disposable pictures of perfection.
They didn’t see my hunches turn to tears—
from all the hurt and dark between us.
