Fred

in memory of Fred Macias

The tattoo on his back, Christ

tacked up on the cross,

the scroll above His bloody forehead –

not INRI, but FRED, it said.

Lifted his shirt to show me in a “folk-rock” bar.

Then tore the filters from some Camels,

one for me and one for himself.

And Pete Kennedy on twelve-string guitar,

glistening chime stuff, his wife

singing high harmony, while we watched

a skinny girl in jeans in front of us,

also tattooed,

like she might or might not save a life.

Fred said he’d been home – his black eyes

flashing behind black frame glasses –

and didn’t even recognize his own daughter,

that his wife, having waited years and years,

remarried while he decayed at Huntsville.

Still, like an outlaw, he cheated death row,

endured his purgatory of appeals.

His favorite Horse waited for him outside:

black loyalty, creeping gait, toothed dependency –

hunger in his belly blatting from gas to greed,

dry tongue, that need to get off, get high, get

some. Some what? Anything.

Waited patiently.

I wanted to catch him up a bit

on the world, but he wasn’t having it:

it was what it was, the world –

not counting the girl –

not what was in it.