Texas,
You carry Wild West
complete with the Alamo
in your eyes.
No surrender. Never.
Watching you,
I feel that salty spill: smashing staccato tattoo
in my own heart.

Texas,
you have come all these years
past the Panhandle, West,
paying your dues
in blood, always
paying.
Texas, you hooked me with that first line
thrown out, cast
beyond those lonesome coyote tales.
The red dust blinding, the
scorching sun; shit kicking bars
kicking the shit
out of your Soul…
So much Soul
I find myself
reeling in to give you room.
Texas.

There is a poem that says:
Such joy. Such joy, sometimes
It is like two rivers meeting deep
in the ocean.
With you, Texas,
Always,
there is a taste of
the Sea.