Brian Eckert is a graduate of the Master’s of Liberal Arts program at Johns Hopkins University and plans to complete a PhD in the future. Brian’s résumé includes bartending, landscaping, gravedigging, farming, and cooking. Brian is a poet, an avid hiker, and lover of books and bookstores. He hopes to pursue a career in academia.
poetry
Lizards and Livestock
Brian Eckert, Johns Hopkins University
When I was 12
@ 4 Corners
I laid down on the marker
to be in 4 states at once
and my mom took a picture
on a disposable camera
that was never developed
when I was in high school
we went back again—
through the 4 corners,
but we didn’t stop at the monument
because my dad read in the newspaper
“GPS Shows 4 Corners is 150ft Off the Mark”
so we drove on through Shiprock to Durango
Now, back again @ 26
Where ravens take center-pivot irrigation showers
Do I have to pee? Or am I just nervous?
And restless—Where the radio day
starts with Tina Turner, Queen, Fleetwood Mac
consecutively @5:17am—
and the local 4 corners public radio
is a chronatonic country music station spinning the classics
that I’ve never heard, but immediately love
then they just slip away
the DJ never mentions the title or artist
and I haven’t had service to look them up
and I wouldn’t have it any other way
driving down these empty high desert dirt roads
lined with ranches and red dirt hay fields
Are these juniper bushes?
Or some other scrub brush?
Farm Fresh Eggs
Milk
Hay
Pass with care
Do not pass
Caution Congestion Ahead
Do not pass
Pass with care
Road Work Ahead
Pass with care
layered grease, sand, & stone &
Sightline
I’m missing Mac n Cheese Fest in Farmington
& the radio won’t shut up about it
or “exceptional customer service”
& “great financing deals”
at all the car dealerships in Cortez
“Bison meat for sellin’: Grand Island Bison”
just outside Del Norte
Where the “Rio Grande River” signs
have “River” painted over with green
goats and geckos
horses and horseflies
cattle and cattle guards
dot this landscape
less sparse than the shade
but just barely—
I have this unintentional habit
of driving through cities
shortly after a mass shooting
like:
Uvalde
Las Vegas
Farmington
Highland Park
Colorado Springs
even Boulder,
where I live now.
It’s like, I don’t even notice:
there’s nothing in the air
or a looming dark cloud,
it’s always the yard signs
that remind me—
like political placards
memorializing those lost
with ribbons and flowers
but the laws haven’t changed
guns are as available as ever—
and we don’t take care
of each other
or ourselves
and I just keep driving
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