with an apron,
ruffled rickrack edge.
She believed in the screen door,
its tiny holes letting in breeze.
She preceded thieves and reasons for locking.
She held on to all her paper fans.
Her
¿Como estas?
has a heart in it.
If I said
No good
, she would listen.
*
Honey howâs the little one? I see him come out
on the porch in his red shirt
,
pick up the hose, shoot it straight
in the air at the bananas
.
You got any ripe yet?
I walk over to see the President of the United States
at the Alamo and he donât look like much
.
He stand up high on a little stage and look down
into our faces. He got that tight look
like the curly-tail dog sit in the middle
of the street every night when the lamps
go on. Why you think it do that?
I say, Hey! Hey you! Trucks!
And it turn its head, look at me
so up and down like Iâm the one
who crazy
.
*
Sometimes the grass grows so tall
in the vacant lot beside her house.
Fancy pink vines tie knots
around the heads of weeds.
She swims through the field at sundown,
calling out to hens, cats, whoever
might be lost in there,
Hey! Hey you! Itâs time to come home!
And the people drifting slowly past
in the slim envelope of light
answer softly,
Here I am
.
HIDDEN
If you place a fern
under a stone
the next day it will be
nearly invisible
as if the stone has
swallowed it.
If you tuck the name of a loved one
under your tongue too long
without speaking it
it becomes blood
sigh
the little sucked-in breath of air
hiding everywhere
beneath your words.
No one sees
the fuel that feeds you.
WAITING TO CROSS
One man closes his hand.
He will not show us
the silver buckle
he uncovered in his garden.
One man reads houses.
They make sense to him,
grammar of lights in windows.
He looks for a story to be part of.
One man has no friends.
His mother is shrinking
at a table with one chair.
She dreams a mouse
with her sonâs small head.
One man feels right.
The others must be wrong.
And the world? It does not touch him.
One man stares hard
at the other menâs profiles
against the sky.
He knows he is one of five men
standing on a corner.
ESTATE SALE
A crowd of strangers flies over your life
picking out landmarksâstainless steel
cake pan, jello mold, pastel box of
thank you notes. Someoneâs even put
a 25-cent price tag on the coffin
of Kleenex in the bathroom.
Iâm a prowler, unable to smile back
at the bouyant women hired to coordinate
this last event.
Beside the dismantled bedframe,
a telephone with scrawled number of
SON DAVID EVANS taped to the side.
You intended it to be read by someone else.
I hope he came by often including you
in his regular weeks, not just his holidays.
Your angels with lace collars.
Christmas cookie plate
and rattled tea towels.
How big we are, the living.
We stomp between your flexible curtain road
and the dictionary with a chunk torn out.
Iâm caught in the kitchen with a sadness
flat as the icebox door.
Considering reductions: your horizon,
your hope. Antique wooden wardrobes
stuffed into three tight rooms.
Carrying the stack of blank typing paper
and the Scrabble game with the Santa sticker
circa 1950.
Now weâre stuck together.
Wooden letters click in our hands.
We make ABLE, ADEPT .
Someoneâs JIG turns into JIGSAW .
Someoneâs HUNCH remains just that,
though we keep flying over it from different angles,
trying to make it larger,
trying to give it feet or hands or another ground
to stand on.
LOST
notices  flutter
from    telephone    poles
until    they    fade
OUR SWEET TABBYÂ Â Â Â AFRAID OF EVERYTHING
BIG GRAY CATÂ Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â HE IS OUR ONLY CHILD
SIBERIAN HUSKYÂ Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â NEEDS HIS MEDICINE
FEMALE SCHNAUZERÂ Â Â Â Â Â WE ARE SICK WITH WORRY
all night I
ruffled rickrack edge.
She believed in the screen door,
its tiny holes letting in breeze.
She preceded thieves and reasons for locking.
She held on to all her paper fans.
Her
¿Como estas?
has a heart in it.
If I said
No good
, she would listen.
*
Honey howâs the little one? I see him come out
on the porch in his red shirt
,
pick up the hose, shoot it straight
in the air at the bananas
.
You got any ripe yet?
I walk over to see the President of the United States
at the Alamo and he donât look like much
.
He stand up high on a little stage and look down
into our faces. He got that tight look
like the curly-tail dog sit in the middle
of the street every night when the lamps
go on. Why you think it do that?
I say, Hey! Hey you! Trucks!
And it turn its head, look at me
so up and down like Iâm the one
who crazy
.
*
Sometimes the grass grows so tall
in the vacant lot beside her house.
Fancy pink vines tie knots
around the heads of weeds.
She swims through the field at sundown,
calling out to hens, cats, whoever
might be lost in there,
Hey! Hey you! Itâs time to come home!
And the people drifting slowly past
in the slim envelope of light
answer softly,
Here I am
.
HIDDEN
If you place a fern
under a stone
the next day it will be
nearly invisible
as if the stone has
swallowed it.
If you tuck the name of a loved one
under your tongue too long
without speaking it
it becomes blood
sigh
the little sucked-in breath of air
hiding everywhere
beneath your words.
No one sees
the fuel that feeds you.
WAITING TO CROSS
One man closes his hand.
He will not show us
the silver buckle
he uncovered in his garden.
One man reads houses.
They make sense to him,
grammar of lights in windows.
He looks for a story to be part of.
One man has no friends.
His mother is shrinking
at a table with one chair.
She dreams a mouse
with her sonâs small head.
One man feels right.
The others must be wrong.
And the world? It does not touch him.
One man stares hard
at the other menâs profiles
against the sky.
He knows he is one of five men
standing on a corner.
ESTATE SALE
A crowd of strangers flies over your life
picking out landmarksâstainless steel
cake pan, jello mold, pastel box of
thank you notes. Someoneâs even put
a 25-cent price tag on the coffin
of Kleenex in the bathroom.
Iâm a prowler, unable to smile back
at the bouyant women hired to coordinate
this last event.
Beside the dismantled bedframe,
a telephone with scrawled number of
SON DAVID EVANS taped to the side.
You intended it to be read by someone else.
I hope he came by often including you
in his regular weeks, not just his holidays.
Your angels with lace collars.
Christmas cookie plate
and rattled tea towels.
How big we are, the living.
We stomp between your flexible curtain road
and the dictionary with a chunk torn out.
Iâm caught in the kitchen with a sadness
flat as the icebox door.
Considering reductions: your horizon,
your hope. Antique wooden wardrobes
stuffed into three tight rooms.
Carrying the stack of blank typing paper
and the Scrabble game with the Santa sticker
circa 1950.
Now weâre stuck together.
Wooden letters click in our hands.
We make ABLE, ADEPT .
Someoneâs JIG turns into JIGSAW .
Someoneâs HUNCH remains just that,
though we keep flying over it from different angles,
trying to make it larger,
trying to give it feet or hands or another ground
to stand on.
LOST
notices  flutter
from    telephone    poles
until    they    fade
OUR SWEET TABBYÂ Â Â Â AFRAID OF EVERYTHING
BIG GRAY CATÂ Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â HE IS OUR ONLY CHILD
SIBERIAN HUSKYÂ Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â NEEDS HIS MEDICINE
FEMALE SCHNAUZERÂ Â Â Â Â Â WE ARE SICK WITH WORRY
all night I
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