Off Texas Avenue, the parking lot is littered with memories
From the skinny brown arcs
of ballerinas rooted
in a coltish breeze,
the first brittle leaves drift
limply to still-summer ground,
yellow earthbound stars
five-pointed like fingers
whose reach is destined to be crushed.
there is a silence
that holds underneath the constant hum
of voices, engines, bike treads;
the same we came here seeking
so many years ago. tiny clam shells
scattered among gravel tell how far
the sea has come, calling
to mind a beach road
i saw once, where a black man
in an old truck rode north
with one arm out the window,
the bed full of rusted chains,
whole oil drums full. like the shadow
of the hawk gliding hugely over the rooftops
that bank the park, i want it
to mean something, to be more
than soundless commentary:
a blessing. a washing clean.
Tectonic
Today’s morning dawns like déjà vu: how you
left like it was forever, how we felt
as impermanent as newly ironed sheets,
shifting bedrock to sift for truth
at the river’s bottom. A cloud of fruitflies beggars
by the front door, just-hatched things
kamikazi-ing for freedom. I find ants
drowning inside the honey jar, dead with smiles
on their tiny ant-faces. Black birds
bowl up inside the bedroom gutters,
scratch like chickens in a strong wind,
hungry for April. But the weather is changing, and we
no longer lightning rods drawn
electric to ground—wake early; unclutch;
go about our hours like icebergs
sunk in an ocean of minutes.
this is what goes on the last page
we fall, as the year
into december, so
wetly longed-for.
the rush
that calls our quiet
is the absence
of sirens.
the rails we walked
for so long
now blink
into forever,
a smoke-curl
on january’s horizon.
your left hook
is useless
against the coming
cold.
that kind
of hardness
can only melt
or burn.
