You might come here Sunday on a whim.



Say your life broke down. The last good kiss



you had was years ago. You walk these streets



laid out by the insane, past hotels



that didn’t last, bars that did, the tortured try



of local drivers to accelerate their lives.



Only churches are kept up. The jail



turned 70 this year. The only prisoner



is always in, not knowing what he’s done.







The principal supporting business now



is rage. Hatred of the various grays



the mountain sends, hatred of the mill,



The Silver Bill repeal, the best liked girls



who leave each year for Butte. One good



restaurant and bars can’t wipe the boredom out.



The 1907 boom, eight going silver mines,



a dance floor built on springs—



all memory resolves itself in gaze,



in panoramic green you know the cattle eat



or two stacks high above the town,



two dead kilns, the huge mill in collapse



for fifty years that won’t fall finally down.







Isn’t this your life? That ancient kiss



still burning out your eyes? Isn’t this defeat



so accurate, the church bell simply seems



a pure announcement: ring and no one comes?



Don’t empty houses ring? Are magnesium



and scorn sufficient to support a town,



not just Philipsburg, but towns



of towering blondes, good jazz and booze



the world will never let you have



until the town you came from dies inside?







Say no to yourself. The old man, twenty



when the jail was built, still laughs



although his lips collapse. Someday soon,



he says, I’ll go to sleep and not wake up.



You tell him no. You’re talking to yourself.



The car that brought you here still runs.



The money you buy lunch with,



no matter where it’s mined, is silver



and the girl who serves your food



is slender and her red hair lights the wall.





