poetrysheet

We grieved as our cigars grew short.

 

Tree frogs screamed in the silver maple;

the dog next door awoke in a frenzy of growl;

a congress of cats behind the fence wailed.

 

The whole neighborhood wanted

just ten more minutes with Castro

A hot place, four dried pines from ascension,

and willing to spread, like smoke,

heavenward.

 

People shimmer in mirages—

sticks quaking in sun

coming off all that trailer park chrome.

 

And dust, lots of dust,

chokes throats, chafes eyes,

makes noses bleed.

 

But it’s good here, and quiet.

Especially at night. The cool settles,

even those pines seem alive.

A long walk, enough

to stir the air in the schoolyard

and bring the cats home for milk.

 

The girl, new whirled on the merry-go-round,

chatters ahead on the sidewalk,

waves her hands up at the cottonwoods.

 

Up at the corner,

the wind in the trees

sounds like a river.

seas of butterfly peas flutter;

purple, blue swollen petals unfold,

welcome light and warmth in the still of garden

 

apple blossoms fall soundless across broad shoulders,

cling to the sweater of the gardner as she clips

jonquil, gladiola, from hoards of like blooms

 

a blanket cast in the tulip bed and lounged upon;

a gardner, fertile and strong, sunglowed, rounded, lithe,

smelling of earth and flower and mown grass

 

spirea caressing two bodies, sun-warm skin,

breath mulch soft and green cool;

the tulips riot in a breeze, erupt in frenzies of joy

the last time the sky broke like this–

bearded faces wisped in gray,

runways into space where haze becomes earth–

was when we walked dry creeks

into the desert outside of Chinle

 

cottonwoods rattled in baked haze–

locusts jumped over splintered looms

and into the corners of hogans

 

evenings, we stuck matches into sagebrush

and dreamed of Navajo blood

pounded into canyon sandstone

by Kit Carson’s rifliers, who fired

like boys at a turkey shoot

 

we woke to ravens ready to pluck out our eyes

when we weren’t looking–

we climbed onto ponies hitched to medicine men

and we raised hands split rough and empty,

hands tired of fighting anyone and anything

 

there and then we rode away,

feathers in our hair turned to sunshine

 

we could smooth puddles tonight

when the temperature reaches zero

with the Zamboni in the Lona Auto parking lot–

the one in front of the mural of Don Diego

kneeling at the feet of the Virgin.

 

but there’s not much to say

about a Zamboni strayed

and foundered before the Virgin of Guadalupe

in a puddle guarded by broken cars

 

still, slick ice for the Virgin, Don Diego,

and us to skate tight circles on with shivering dogs

until the sun melts our little paradise

and sends us skittering back home

to sleep off our dream

 

now, though, in night muffle,

snow rimes the puddle,

ice crystals feather the windshields

 

the cottonwood and sycamore

give up mats of leaves

on mere suggestion of winter

 

but the bear pin oak shivers,

bow-backed, full-pelted,

paws up and ready to fight

 

freeze snow hellish wind

it will take all winter

to skin that tree

 

a city rinsed and rinsed again

in two day’s worth of washboard rain

 

finally

the place is washed,

spring cleaned

 

curbs scoured, yards scrubbed

from three months of dog

 

tree trunks tidied

for new messages

I.

breathe deeply this wind

taste walnut leaves in the air

sunlight in pockets

II.

children blown about

in the playground, in the street

men file off the bus

III.

robin on the fence

sings bright notes, searches for worms

cat creeps, ears forward

IV.

smoke on limn

congregations of new flocks

lightning horizons

V.

the river

mirrors ignited

wineglasses of sun

that summer, the park ached

with the screams

and yips of kids and dogs

loosed upon it

 

it was green then,

pool full, moms with sunglasses

kids with flippers and sea monster floats

 

people burned weenies, took in a breeze,

smiled at each other

with beer foam moustaches

 

around, mamas sang in kitchens—

bread steam, meat-and-potato sear

floated over the baseball diamond

crawling with those spidery little guys

on St. Helena’s B-Team beating hell

out of St. John Francis Regis again—

 

porches creaked, smoldered with cigars

a hundred dogs on every block

raised the living and the dead

at each out-of-sync clock chime

 

anyone who had any money

bought grape pop in a bottle

a pack of luckies, or a snort of whiskey

and life was as good

as it was ever going to get

 

that summer, in the park,

in the pool, we watched

young mamas and older sisters

cross and uncross their legs,

snap their swimsuit tops

and pull the elastic out from behind

with index fingers

 

it was before life became knotty,

before the girls got pregnant,

and things went bad with cops

parents, brothers and sisters

 

and we all got the hell out

 

that summer was as good

as it was ever going to get

but there was no way to trace the lines

through the waves in the water

reflected in sunglasses