Photo of Jayne Cortez by Amir Bey

Bisbee Poetry Festival, 1985, Southern Arizona

For Jayne Cortez, rip

It was you &

Rochelle Owens & her many words for one word

& Ashbury who spoke of Nordic myth & the mystic house

Yes lightning hit when he said that

& Acker who wrote Don Quixote we must steal it she said

Ed Sanders played his piano tie wired

His own harmonics near the Beat heart I shimmied on stage

My Dallas Cowboys jersey & my Viet Nam jungle boots

We were

About to turn into this fire-world without measure

You saw that you burned with that

You saw that

 — Juan Felipe Herrera