The Jungle

In midsummer, in Los Angeles,
the night is fractured

with mountains, grilling ink
into the blue thaw. I trail

into pools and pastures,
and in the diner,

tattoos speck
and skirt up booths,

the waitress, Dottie, is whipping
shells, mac and cheese,

waffles and chickens,
all oracles in the oil.

You think I’m kidding? Look
at Hopper’s orange rooms,

his lone man. Vineyards
are boring to paint,

the coffee rumbling us all
into a primal scene, the mismatched

silverware like guns in a Western,
all the possibilities

of a warm night.
The thing about LA is

anyone can walk through
the door. The drunk drive, the

open-air and clipping down
Highland Avenue. Here are all the streets

I remember: Alvarado and Effie.
Mohawk and Montana. Before

all this? The hills of Carpinteria,
cattle punk, the drained floodplains

and eucharistic jimson weed.
But dig that ditch city,

those impersonal stones,
the great vigilance

of the 19th century,
the circus of eggs on the plate,

Dottie full of lips, just lips
sipping, stinging the sandy air.