Anahuac Cast Away

Long dark desert night highway moon
Brain listening to itself ignores radio
Suddenly her voice breaks through noise
And half a century of forgetting

I remember I remember it was
A cold, yes a cold night standing
In the commons I could hear her singing
Strangely musical strangling a roar
Breaks through the closed doors
Students huddled over an illicit smoke
Stop their self indulgence and listen
To the accent from my home town
I knew her heart and wished for her then
When the doors opened young men
Carrying the cash box skipped
Down the steps their job finished
No one to stop me as I entered
The hall was hot with hormones and pot
A blue light turned her red face purple
She was out of control the mike stand
Between her legs pressing her granny gown
Into her form her short legs shapely her
round belly calling her heavy breasts
Waiting to be weighed and punished

Driving driving the band pulsed large
This was the closing number I was there
She bent almost to the floor her hair
Hanging like flames rising
She jumped in triumphant screaming
Southern Comfort offered to the gods
The band crashed crashed crashed
Barely heard through the deafened crowd

No curtain the band walked away but
She stood as though alone smiling at
Her adrenaline her throat resting she
Stood and drank alone the bottle empty
Stood and watched alone the big room empty
A thousand backs moving away she saw
A knot of long-haired faces calling
From the doors I saw her unsteady walk
To them I saw her sit on the steps I saw
Her numbing loneliness. They saw
A goddess above human form
Not the girl from Anahuac mourning
For the lost savior in her song
While trapped in her pock-marked Hell

Quickly bored by her muttering
Two moved to the edge and drifted
Away four heavy girls laughed
Like distant twilight birds
Unfocused her half-closed eyes
Searched the distance and found
My eyes as I was wishing

A thick man shouted that
the bus is leaving the bus is leaving
You if you don't come on
Angry words shouted into the wings
The heavy stage door slammed
An angry finger stabbed heavy air
Her back turned the fans stepped away
Rolling to rest on her elbows
Her smile of one watching the room spin
Her bra-less breasts falling to her sides
Her legs spread like mother earth I imagined
I could smell her and knew what I must do
And walked with big steps my boots
Pounding the carpeted aisle
The girls turned and parted as I looked
Nowhere but into her unfocused eyes
I've come for you, Janice, Let's go

She looked intensely at me, then
Remembered some other some other
Her eyes and mouth opened in recognition
Of someone else, not me, come to save her
Again come to take her again come to take
Her again away. Come to take her

In an attic dusty on a foam covered
Door found in an alley on broken cinder
Blocks a never-washed sleeping bag
Welcomed her slow falling and
Without speaking I took my face to hers
All of her opened for me Eyes mouth arms legs
lips lips wetter than water smoother than oil
The smell of fertile soil the feel of skin
left to dry without lotion or caring
Unrestrained breasts soft and shapeless
She waited for pain of penetration but
Moved not a muscle saying Hurry Hurry
Cloth pulled aside it was over in a
Thousand heartbeats and tears she moaned

Moccasins still on her feet she
Said she needed to go outside to breathe
I watched her go through the door
Her gown stained sticking wet
She did not look back or wait
Shuffling I could hear her weaving
Down the abandoned steps
I waited but she did not return.

The next night she sang in Austin
She never asked my name.