NUCLEAR WAR: WHAT'S IN IT FOR YOU

In brutal nightmares I bully young men,
speak of clean shirts in the Petrified Forest,
the purity of immobility entering my dream.

I have it all on tape:
the Buffaloes and Cornhuskers
tied 19-19; it was a subzero
night in Boulder; there was snow
piled behind the end zone.

Suddenly, I understand football
as a game of static pattern,
where movement matters
less than configuration
juxtaposition and placement;
not fluid, but brittle.
A closed system.

Above these bodies frozen
into solid coherence,
a black sky sharp with stars
suggests infinite possibility.

I want to spin like a spiral galaxy
revolving round a definable core
that drifts across time,
one long curved arm of light
reaching toward darkness;

I want a love that will take my soul
out to the edge of existence
and bring it back changed.

"Nuclear War: What's In It For You" is the title of a book I found at a sidewalk booksale in New York City just after reading Don DeLillo's novel End Zone, about football and nuclear war in Texas. I'm attracted to systems and structures of all kinds, but especially when they are breaking down. Think of the heat and movement of stars as a nuclear blast that cleans the slate for change, a beautiful destruction. Cold war love. Chaos.