It is raining (though barely). The temperature is a cool and steady sixty-one degrees. It is early morning in a Chicago suburb. Birds chirp without enthusiasm. Cars pass without acknowledging one another. Life is off to an indifferent start on this musty, Monday mornin...

EL PASO

Dust.

Earth that was maybe red.

A city of pain.

A decade ago I lived in El Paso,
and I slept on a partially-deflated air mattress
in a small hot apartment next to my first wife
and her disassociation from me.
I was a young soldier, busy and dutiful.
A baby and...