Joseph City

Route 66
running past
the broken back of a stable
to
Cholla Power Plant
The baby Christ is sage
brush
tumbling
into ochre rimmed wastes
things men should not
drive/eat/drink
glow
star of the Nazarene
bringing the desert
life

Pearls and Crocodiles

To be Cleopatra now must be a sad thing. To be born again and wake up one day with thirty-some years wasted in a new body and memories of an abusive uncle and alcoholic father mixed with the smell of sand, sun and worship still lingering, wrapped tight like a raised fist clutching the bright-shelled scarab.

“Where is my kingdom? Where are my servants, my love?” she asks the ghost of Marc Antony and the back wall of the bar.

She is burdened now with a large red plastic purse, book bag sized; the opening a wound holding crumpled cigarette packs, tissues, and poorly folded sheets of paper. She sets it down heavily on the stool next to her. Small noises of settling come from both of them as the cushions take up their job, unasked.
She is wearing a black leather jacket that is, in places, a worn, dirty gray. Her blouse is purple linen with a low hippie cut in the front. A silver coin sits on the crest of her chest. The silver chain holding it is cheap and dull. Her blonde hair is streaked with brown. Pink and white rhinestones circle the cuff of her jeans and run up the seam of the leg. They are hand-glued.
I notice all these because she is forcing herself into my small group at the bar, setting a glass down and leaning into me to say hello. I feel suddenly uncomfortable as I see that she has a small jewel hanging from a circlet on her forehead. With all the bracelets, rings and glittering facets, my gaze doesn’t really settle down until she thrusts a grubby, folded piece of paper at us. “I’m Cassandra,” she says as I reluctantly unfold the square and see a faded picture. The picture is wallet-sized and black-and-white. Small print surrounds it. Footnotes and italics lean out of the dense sprawl mark it clearly as an academic text.
I see a lady in profile. A short message in blue ink is scrawled below the picture. “That’s me,” she says.
My friends have subtly turned away, using my body as a shield to start a new conversation circle. Two of my fingers rest on a crease in the paper. She looks at me, “I know you,” she says uncertainly. I shrug noncommittally. I have always looked like that guy, some cousin, that friend of a friend, a comfortable sort of soul, I guess. It is a picture of Cleopatra, first century B.C. queen of Egypt, drinker of pearls.

It was once said that as a small child, the princess was walking one morning along the mud banks of the Nile when she stopped and asked her retinue to leave her. As she stood alone in the pink light of dawn, green reeds sprouted under her small feet and the fearsome river crocodiles floated to the surface, leaving their hiding places and following harmlessly behind the girl as she walked the soft earth green.

Cassandra first knew, really knew, who she once was when she saw that picture. The picture is now a Xeroxed moment under my fingers. “See the smirk? See the cheeks? Even my breast looks like that,” she brags as ringed fingers follow the outline of her own soft flesh down from end curve of her eyebrow to the bottom of the coin on her chest and stop.
She lost the coin on the silver chain for three months once. She found it the day after she broke up with a boyfriend that didn’t treat her well. “I went to watch ‘Casino’ and there it was; a little miracle of chance.” She took it as a sign.
I finish my beer in a long swallow and signal for another from the bartender. She is already pulling me a bottle from the silver cooler and opening it with a grin. I look at Cassandra’s glass and offer her another as the bartender openly winks at me. “Liquor makes people Satanic,” declines Cassandra with an overly vehement shake of the head. A hard, brittle light hits her eyes from within.
She recovers by offering another snippet of proof to her identity. “I think she hung with the common people,” she confided, “I think that’s why she was so loved.”

When the great Queen died, it was if a whole kingdom lost its lover. The delicate reeds cried with the wind as the graceful pont drew past silent crowds. The dull splash of the long oars could not ease the pain as the fists began again.

The bar’s ceiling was nicotine colored. Plexiglas covered cabinets hold football memorabilia on unfinished wood shelves. A Louis Lipps autographed Steelers jersey is the case centerpiece. A 1986 National Championship poster shows Nittany Lions standing on defeated Miami Hurricane players. Yuengling Lager, Coors Light, Rolling Rock, Bud, and MGD are all on tap. The barstool cushions are covered in a pale green plastic. They are both dirty and shiny from the countless shift-workers that come to drink in small groups. It is rarely crowded here in this coalmine Memphis.
Although unemployed, she is working on a stand-up routine. “I missed the open mike audition I went to because my ride was late, but I found the head guy afterward.” The glass jewel on her forehead is a purple teardrop. She touches it briefly. “I did my five minutes for him and he told me I should keep at it.” A glass is moved to center mass position on the bar. “I think he liked it,” she says, stirring the cranberry juice on the rocks with a trembling hand.
The drink has long since lost the royal red— tiny bits of lime pulp swirled around the brown-green rind and ice slivers. The other hand played with her picture. “Don’t you think I look like her?” she asks. She pushes the creased Xerox at me again and takes a breath. “I really am her, you know,” she defies.
Her gaze skitters around the room only to settle back on mine with sudden directness. Her blue eyes hold still for a moment and then slide away, following the room like the pulp pieces in a glass.
The silence is not uncomfortable for the queen. Besides, her whole body is in motion, circling unspoken thoughts and memories; touching jewel, paper, purse, jewel paper, purse. “Do you have a dollar for the cigarette machine?” she asks.

When a coin commemorating her reign appeared in the land, many would secretly build small altars around it in their homes. They burnt incense to it, praying and listening for her whispered guidance late into the night as a small girl collapsed into herself under a thin blanket, the smell of whisky filling her nostrils and the crack in the door growing wider.

I fish two ones out of my wallet and lay them on the bar. Washington’s profile covers hers for a moment. I take a swig of luke-warm beer and the brown bottle gives her flesh sepia tones. She takes the ones, with thanks, folds up her picture, and eases off the stool. She sets the big purse on the bank of the pool table as she leans over to buy a pack of Jacks. The balls from a long forgotten game sit on the green felt in harmless clumps around the red. I take another long drink to finish my beer and notice that she has gone. I look back, and the bartender is already digging in the silver cooler.