Indestructo

One arm tattooed with an English garden,
the other sleeved in the gates of Hell,
Len lost the world of Walmarts and dented cars,
diabetes and jerk bosses in that embrace.
Lucky that rich guys think she’s crazy,
get scared, and leave her out there
for a guy like Len, with nothing to offer
but his welding skills at Indestructo Fuel Tanks,
and too much time with a pawn shop Fender
played like they were born fraternal twins.
She smokes up, he plugs in, spaghetti strands
of sound riot up the room as the wah-wah blooms
and he sings the new song about her gone
for all last week. She starts to weep. “I won,” he thinks.
She builds Len into a granite cliff
that falls to ocean when the guitar’s done,
until the night whirlpools above their bed.
“I love my Lanabelle, long may she stray,”
blowing up this ol’ worry machine of a world
as she motors from Louisianna to the East Bay,
in her flat-black Merc, red-trimmed rims,
rose deoderizer dangling from the mirror
bold as bait for our baddest noseeums.