Cigarettes and some chamomile tea on a terra cotta tiled patio just steps away from the chaotic center of republican politics. Not a ton of hustle and bustle, but there are a handful of homeless folks sleeping a block away. It’s a different place and a different time and the looks of ignorance and a forgotten past linger like fog on a cold morning in the Mississippi River valley. Miles and miles to get here and be here in this moment, drinking this drink and thinking these thoughts. Alone in this loneliness wondering which words will capture the sentiment and worrying that anything that’s chosen will just end up being sediment, or cement or some other form of compressed rocks. Not dissimilar to that of an old abandoned pool in the backyard of some long forgotten home in some poor neighborhood in Phoenix. Or maybe they’ll be like the garbage and weed covered makeup of the Indian School spillway in Albuquerque that runs from the Sandia’s down to the fabricated river under Interstate 40. There’s no way to determine the outcome of ones choices, especially insofar as words are concerned. The best bet is to fire away from the tip of the fingers and just put it out there. Let it be digested and consumed by the reader. That is, after all, the purpose of art.