April 9th

Stonecrusher Mortlock
had been tracking a trail
for three states now
of lightning bites on trees,
scuffles in the groundcover,
buckskins and belts flung over shrubs.

Davy Crockett, the man who claimed
he could slip down anything without a scratch
once said
"Always be sure you are right, then go ahead."

Stonecrusher Mortlock did not know for sure, though knowing
how frontiersmen scrawled their names
on honey locusts, in cave walls,
how frontiersmen moved like streaks of lightning through
bordellos and bedposts
he followed the trail knowing
that somewhere outside Kentucky
something was moving

Somewhere outside Kentucky
Stonecrusher Mortlock found
that Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett made love like mad bulls.
On the clearing edge
Stonecrusher Mortlock saw
and wished to unsee
their horns locked.
Their limbs were strung out like fiddle strings,
they made the sound
of crickets, their legs rasping,
made a sound like chirping
the creaking before night sets in.

Frontiersman scrawled their names
and Daniel Boone did the same,
finding new places for his name to hold.
Davy Crockett could hardly bear
the way Boone was a tongue carving inside his cheek,
or how they scrawled themselves
leaving with scratches.