tree tops

trees know how to nod their tops all right
at night when we walk our dogs beneath
they wash the sky with their bushy mops
and tell each other peace
we will not sleep tonight
like them
though one or two might
listen to the rushing of the air
up here where we rinse our hair in it

August 28 2019

Times Square, Hotel

So many lives to be understood:
the lithe brown boy in his white up-do,
fixing his makeup so fiercely in Sephora;
the happy patriotic cowboy
with his stars and stripes guitar,
skating through the square
in his underwear;
that burning man,
black as a silhouette, with eyes like sunsets;
and the unregarded,
anonymous in rhinestones,
flapping ties,
and income-strapped intent.
Too many asked me what they meant.

Now, here,
the lamp is kind.
It shuts out day
and leaves a dark so deep
that when at last sleep drowns me in its dreams,
the only faces left
are those I need to see.

August 26 2019

Locals

Someone must have spread the word:
This yard sale is men-only.
Never such a sight before:
In shorts and baseball caps they wander
by golf clubs, beer tap handles, drills,
and a band saw with its case ajar
to show the blade’s true quality.
These men are the town’s deep stratum,
seam of coal;
in vans and king cab pickups they patrol,
Sundays in the doughnut shop converse,
and greet close-cropped at the barber's.
Rooted, they uproot the trees.
In home-improvement stores they ask no questions;
stained, blunt-fingered hands heft lumber.
With box nails, PVC, and roadway tar,
the places that we live are,
well and poorly,
made by such as these.

August 18 2019

Cleaning

You'd almost think a storm was coming,
the way he stands behind me,
tail down,
or lies despondent on the kitchen floor.
But it's the vacuum and the broom that have him worrying.
A house this clean can only mean one thing:
that we are leaving--
never to return?

August 17 2019

Reactionary

Rhyme is overrated, so they say;
alliteration, too.*
I'll take whatever makes the music and imbue
each word with all the spirit that my skill commands
to make the poem true.

*But rhythm beats, at least.

August 17 2019