Waking to puke and shit,
I walk her drunken bones.
There's a soft spot on her skull:
blood's found a way
to muddle into air.
My biceps tighten:
anger's as good as a workout.
I hose her twice and bed her down.
She could be a sick horse.
She won't remember word or touch.
This memory's just for me.
J. Tarwood has been a dishwasher, a community organizer, a medical archivist, a documentary film producer, an oral historian, and a teacher. Much of his life has been spent in East Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East. He has published four books, The Cats in Zanzibar, Grand Detour, And For The Mouth A Flower, and What The Waking See, and his poems have appeared in magazines ranging from American Poetry Review to Visions. He has always been an unlikely man in unlikely places.