Two Poems

The Seven Hills

Remember that belly drop, that falling,
falling in the old, brown Chevy, falling in the back seat of that car,

that car Mom drove up the seven hills of President Avenue just for us, going fast enough,
fast enough that our bottoms rose out of the bench vinyl seat,

a seat our bare legs had been sticking to in the July heat, until that moment
that moment giggles erupt among us—me and my two brothers,

brothers fighting with the casual cruelty they saved for each other, their brotherly way,
the way I ignored their city of kicks, scratches, and insults, a city I wouldn't
live in,

live in this day or any day, but going up President Avenue was different,
different because our insides were kites in the wind, rising and falling,

rising and falling was all any of us needed to laugh and get along,
get along in shrieks of laughter and pleading with Mom to go faster,

faster than the 30-mph speed limit, which she'd never consider,
as I never considered I'd be alone, not the lone survivor

but the family survivor, with a mind that still remembers, and forgiveness,
forgiveness that was still possible, but unrealistic, and survival,

survival of any kind, is a cotton string to the past,
the past that unravels, yet proves kinder than the present,

the present in which I'm an orphan, in which President Avenue is just another street,
a street I travel daily, driving the speed limit, climbing one hill at a time,

a time without end of falling, falling, falling

 

Writing the Book

I blow the dandelion's head apart while standing in the rain.
Where there is flood, there's fire. I've never lit a match in rain.

The hunted, the curious, will turn their heads when called by name.
A mockingbird clings to her branch, impersonates a nuthatch in rain.

The devil's walking stick grows bare in fall and thick in spring.
Release the chain saw. Its thorny trunk will scratch in rain.

Absinthe lures oblivion with spoons, a sugar cube melts green.
The lust for namelessness. I'm just a Bandersnatch in rain.

Jasmine, Iris, Daisy, Rose, a garden path of pseudonyms.
Whoever roots or reseeds lives again. Unlatch the rain.

I aim to be a writing miscreant, a rock in search of a window.
Metaphors are easy, but an ocean without waves is just a patch of rain.

I still resist the Street where I was born among the cherry trees.
If all the blossoms fall and fill the pages, I may yet outmatch the rain.