Psilocybin

A crash

smashed dashboard

your college

roommates dead

then dawn

such a fucked

dream.

The caps you shared

leapt into it

waking you.

Months later,

a highway in

Virginia

the pieced dream

now entire,

you cannot be

still

knowing

you can know.

The bus heads

south

and more south

(Alabama)

a limping old man

settles beside you

speaking

English with diffidence.

You offer

him nothing, feel

guilty

he sees into

your squirrel-like ways

reminds you

of a teacher

(you cross into Texas).

He totters off,

leaves the food

he has brought

for you.

Now a Mexican city

unfamiliar

as a filled

notebook

the bus glides through

past factories, dark

buildings

an image stabs

a broken woman’s body

deep under

a vast earth cellar

quick

to the hotel where

you are known

no good

no good

you dream of steps

down

a severed arm stuck

in a dirt wall

the blood-smell air so thin

the Aztecs

were here.

The road

still south

now the Maya

stone ramparts

and tortoise shell

two massive

cats, black and grey

griffins yelping

on sea walls

they hate you

your countrymen

have vomited their mushrooms

like so much

wisdom

then walked bare-assed

in churches

wanting to discover

what demons are swallowed

with a spoonful

of peanut butter

ancient drink of priests

every day

the world doesn’t end

and bread washed

in red icing

for the Day

of the Dead

the same red

sprinkled in tombs

the archaeology

of color trails.

You are

being taught

across the country

thousands more miles

than years

you think

of the old limping man

he would tell you

it is too much

you will never

meet him

brown, infinite

closed

but each time

the ticket is bought

the search

begins

and you move

from edge to center.