Gate’s Pass, Desert Star   

for my friends at the University of Arizona, 1987-88

The best get killed or wounded by alcohol.
Of the Sonoran desert at night,
one time we were sitting in the red reaches
looking for Andromeda. There was talk
of a generic finish to the quest—
some of us would drive home
with a bottle of tequila pinned
between the knees. No one knew where’d
We’d be ten years after you, or I
sighted the twilling mass of starlight
at once like a bright, midnight eye,
like the whole city beyond Gate’s Pass
bundled tightly, a glowing fist ready
to take the last bottle and smash it
onto the scorpion-drenched rocks.