Rock N Roll Universe by Philip Loyd

I’M from the Rock N Roll Universe. Ever heard of it? It’s a place where Nothing Else Matters except the music. Rock N Roll music. One night in the Rock N Roll Universe a woman awoke to her baby crying. “Damn kids!” she cursed. “This is it,” she told her husband, “this is the last time.” But her husband wasn’t there. Where could he be? Maybe he’d had it, too.
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On Monday it’s about a horse. The eyes are remarkably kind, shy, even flirty under their thick veil of lashes. She looks at Nell from the side, sticking her large soft muzzle over the fence to nudge at her outstretched hand. That hand is empty—no sugar cube, apple, carrot, only the palm lines waiting for the mystic to decipher, dampened with sweat. The horse enjoys the salt of that sweat, and licks it all away with one leisurely pass of its velvety tongue. Nell swoons with delight. This is love, she thinks, this.

beyond the dropping of last veils, i have nothing left to offer
        but a jittery right-swipe.
my iPhone screen is brighter than my future here
        or there. adjust. accordingly.

    1.   In the window seat, there’s a boy ten years older than me
          spouting off predications like, We’ll live till 123, easily—
          So it seems I’m having difficulty slipping out of habitual tease.

For Carlos Ortiz, former champ
Crow Medicine
against the sun
Crow Medicine does it up all right: against infinitum,
against obbligatos of skin on skin, Crow Medicine
resuscitates    and flowers in the bone    to focus, rise,
take my own fall on my own    my bitter Crow Medicine,
against the R/E/M flutter of my love’s eyelids.

THE SHARD OF THE VAIN
Lotus on the water,
atop the blue-born mirror,
dallies in the shallows
close to the river edge.
Beads slip from its petals,
tears tracing purity.
On the still, mourning,
for the depths beneath
the sway of vines drifting
without rudder, without tether.