The Fugitive Spends Christmas In A Las Cruces Motel Room Poem by Ernest Hilbert

Stale tamales for breakfast with pale tea,
Cool daybreak fires over the bronzed valley.
Grizzled pink tatters down the jet-flaked blue.
The cruel moon curves and makes chaos of the sea,
Sways around again to drag night from me.
Time has ground me sharp, but I know I'm through.
He's in a mound of stones and chaparral.
We didn't get much cash. It's nearly gone.
Life is gathered closer here, and death too.
I'm sad, and I have no one left to call.
I peek through blinds, sit on the bed alone.
These kind blue pills burn me up and make me new.
I'm wasted and true, savage, coarse, and far.
Winter smooths me away like an old scar.