How the entire coastline is owned by           A developer or the military

            Oil fields                                                               Along a green river

Ooo that was a coyote                                                               Dead?

Two industrial trucks collide

            JFC   painted on one truck –                 Like an exclamation

            BDS   on the other –                                A subversion

            Osprey grinds its talons                                   Into the body of concrete

Glitches and gaps                                       On Marvin Gaye’s “Got to Give it Up”

                                                             I am both

The ranch with hundreds of horses                Fenced in

                                                             The American flag half-mast – Who died?

                                                                            Dolly Parton? Gloria Steinem?

                                                                            I liked the ones with more edge

In the Santa Ynez Valley                   Chumash land

Road sign reads:                                              Building a Better America

Playgrounds named after                               U.S.A. battles

            Bataan, Luzon –                     Our scarred roots

                                                                            Freedom is Not Free

                                                             Painted on a white shed

                                                                            Silhouette of a soldier kneeling

Before a cross – A shrine?                                             What a privilege in this lifetime

Repeated enough times                                   Until you don’t feel

                                                                                               Out of place

Granite face – A tunnel                                     Blasted right through it like a bullet

                                                                                         Everything for the traveler

Discarded along the 101                                  Box of white onions

Like eggs of                                           An abandoned nest

                                                                            Enough of granite faces

                                                                            Shaped like a one-eyed smile

                                                                            Mouth agape

            Screaming?                                            Taking in the

            Highway noise

Orchards of young, bald                                Avocado trees painted white

                                                                            Rampart against the sun

                                                                                         That pulls us closer

Giving up on goodness                                    Starts to make sense

            When my only                                                   Aim is self-defense

            ____ is on fire again                             Enough of the morbid

Eat eat eat                                                         Yes yes yes

            I’ll smoke some of the tobacco         Out for you