Sunny And 78

The day is steeped in the slender witness of incense and fire. A sneer augments a sepia lip. A knife blade gleams in a swimming pool. I carry a dusty book. I proclaim the palominos of impulse. I resist the erosion of revolt.

I open the book. It's a novel. The words are riveting. They say that the finest pleasures are found in ports of discriminating beauty where there can be found damasked silks, worried silver, and strong emulsions tinctured with human understanding.

The ghosts of a railroad war beg for veins of real blood on the surface of a fault line. Even the headlight has a personality. I become a bat and fly around the room bouncing echoes off of the furniture.

All this happens in Tombstone. It is all about Tombstone.

Why Tombstone? Tombstone is a tongue of stone in the mouth of the desert. The desert is a living entity. It speaks. It speaks with a tongue of stone. It says: Tombstone.

The human tongue is an amalgam of taste buds and muscle. I am dazzled by its suppleness and movement. The way it sculpts the air. Everything is possible. I open my mouth. I make things appear.

And disappear. The insolubility of form explains the tangents of desire. Cactus, shell casings, grains of sugar scattered on a Formica tabletop.

I am missing a molar. My gum feels odd when I put my tongue there. A lacuna of ill omen. But hey. It's a nice day in Tombstone. Sunny and 78.

Beryl Candida Brown, opening a little pink package, celebrates her 100th birthday.

Leonard Clanton, tied and gagged, sits on the backseat of a cherry red Isuzu Rodeo speeding down East Toughnut at 90 mph.

It's like the say: shit happens.

But it all balances out in the end.