Standing in the glitter of his death

Just down the road from the peppertree
bus stop, at the blind of the curve,
gleanings from some old man's windshield glint
the road’s shoulder in the sun. Bone shards
of glass shimmer a memorial
to Jimmy Sawyer, grounded to dust
after three days of summer traffic.

I didn't know him. Four or five years
older, he said hi to me sometimes.
Light tan. Dark blonde hair. Warm eyes. Freckles.
We all kinda looked the same. We all
stood at the peppertree. When I'd see
him, I'd think of Finn and my first black friend.


They'd both been going too fast, you know.
The sun distracting and beautiful.
So many curves up Oak Drive. Jimmy.
The guy in the American-made.
So crashes happen every day. But.
He's the first person I sort of knew
who died. Who wasn't anything grand.

So I stand on the spot where his life
crashed away into an old man's lap
after popping up through the warm air.
And try to sense his spirit, like he'd
be waiting. I want him to tell me
he's okay so I can go tell his mom.

Sunday school

A little white car slows and stops
in front of the old Foursquare Church.
Brother Fred and Sister Margot
unchain and unlock the front doors.

They welcome the sunshine, canyon
air, fresh and filled with earthy dust.
They shake must of neglect, disuse
from the warped, faded storybooks
of Noah and Moses. They hand us
brooms and rags, tell us where to clean,
that we will make this church our own.
In a couple of weeks, we do.

There are no parents, no Sunday
bonnets, and no polished church shoes.
Brother Fred, Sister Margot, us.

We read about the Burning Bush.
About the Flood. And when we ask
about the marine fossil bed,
they say, God put those there, sillies.
They explain water, wine, fish, bread.
His death. Tell us that we are sinners
and that we must repent because
We’re all born bad, little sister.
They ask us to tithe our candy
money, our sacrifice to God.

We draw the line right there. Tithe all
at Brooks’ Market. Play kick the can,
hide and seek in the Foursquare lot
every Sunday ‘til Brother Fred
and Sister Margot leave. And mom
retakes the portico with art
classes for kids bored with summer.

Trash can love

Mother can’t.quite.grasp the Gallo rosé
hidden behind the Cheerios, plunges
buttfirst into the thirty-three gallon
trash can. She’s wedged up to her knees, half-way
down the barrel, her ass throned on empty
mac&cheese boxes, milk jugs, & egg shells.

Who wouldn’t fall on the floor laughing?

She screams at each of us for a jerk, cries,
bribes us with chips. The Rubbermaid turtle,
stranded in our kitchen, calls out to us:
Grab my hand, I’ll tell you that I love you.

We don't help her, don't want to hear garbage.

She's got to crawl out of this dump herself.

summer:winter creek

July stream. Too low to coddle an oak leaf,
loose molecules falling into the dusty aquifer.

Backswimmers and pollywogs hike Miocene
granite and old breezes bubbling to the surface.

The coolness encircles fiddlehead shoots,
eddies at the roots of cattails and sedge.

This is the way our water lopes to the ocean.
Evaporates. Returns in a tsunami of winter rage.

Rampages chunks of road:mountain:home
over the post office bridge, sweeps round back

behind Joe’s market where creek-rats tent and grill
stolen meat. Dad slogs home through another storm.

Covered in mud up to his chest. Lugging a box of wet
food from the post office to our Hodgson Circle home.