Poetry

Two thousand lightning strikes from last night’s storm.Nothing unusual but record heatand not the least parched godspit of rain.The clamor of photosynthesis cracks. But the young birds birthed in the last month, hatchedinto heat with a bird bath and feeders,shiver-begging, unsleek and disheveled—any adult will do. Droves of siskins, a crowd of red crossbills, dovechilds…

More and more, when I’m walking—and it seemsI’m walking more and more—I turn aroundBecause something has called to me and more And more it’s me as a child back there, walkingwith a friend or a ball or both—and he’s happyand that makes me happy, even when he doesn’t Seem to know it’s me he is…

The hour splits with dust somewhere between north and south.A pine tree sways, disappears.A palm tree sways, appears.I am an exile from the California of my childhood.Grass whistles between my father’s grave and mine. The wind raises dust on my mother’s house, cloaking the yard.I listen for water trapped deep in the aqueduct.Hawks cast shadows…

My father was a brown man.My mother was white. My father was a very brown man.My mother was a very white woman. My father was born in the jungle.My mother was born in an industrial city. My heart, my little lion—It beats faster to say these things Even after all these years, even afterIt is…

The light isn’t right.The glare from the windowspierces my father’s glasses and he squints as I pressthe button on my phone.Again, he tells me. Take it again. And I oblige,trying to find a positionthat would hold him as he is now though he isconstantly movingto avoid the light. I wonder how longwe will continue this…

A tiny scarab landed in my hand. I see how this works. God just shrinkssmaller and smaller with every chance you let pass, every opportunityto take the message that the horse delivers, “until God arrives assomething, in the end, like you,” I said to the scarab, and with that, asif having had enough, once and…

In truth, who has the energy to be evil?One starts, perhaps, with bar fights, But the dentist bills alone have got to be crazy.Your money’s spent before you’ve begun. And who can actually afford a lair anyway?Wouldn’t we rather have that nice, Three-bedroom, two-bath, with enclosed garage,New roof, and exceptional curb appeal? And what realtor…

Moons falling, invisible hours, my son                                                                               never leaves                                                                     our nest—when the house                                                                              is quiet, it’s most   dangerous. The air deflates to flat, a flag                                               cloaking the rooms. It scares me— this silence—his teenage shadow                                                                  beneath my door, he pauses, moves            on. His footsteps patter                                               and fade, distant like gunfire                                                                                      on the horizon. His noises muffled behind walls—a…

First, you carry no rider. It is to sting and eat sweat, this life, but more itis to live near windows mostly in quiet, or to wait for the fast opening,and when it comes, I want to climb down from myself. I want to leavego the bridle. So I have started watching, standing at the…