Read the issue
Contrails
I noticed
that the pepper tree
Is gone, a
tree of life
We planted
over Chuck’s ashes,
And the
circle where we sat
Remembering
our old friend
Is replaced
with a swimming pool.
It’ll be 95
today,
And many of
us
Who sang and
cried and wished
Our friend a
good farewell
Will float
on our backs
And watch
the contrails overhead
Dissolve
into wispy
Nothings.
5/12/12
Scorpion
I don’t like
to kill things.
The critters
live here, we’re just visitors.
Remembering
the sidewinder
That crawled
under my chair
In the
garage last year,
Sunlight
sparkling on the silvery arms
Of the lawn
chair & the snake
Finally slid
away as the sun went down.
I don’t like
to kill things.
I found a
scorpion sitting on the air mattress
Where Maria
slept
Last night.
I’m cleaning
up her bedding
& there
he is, all bristly,
Pincers at
the ready.
I try to sweep
him out the door
With a broom
& he
scoots underneath the baseboard,
Tail curled
up like an angry fist.
What do you
do?
Live by
chance?
Leave the
door open
& hope
he exits gracefully?
What if he
scurries into the other room,
Burrows into
our suitcases.
Or crawls
into the pile of sheets
Laying on
the other bed?
Snip off his
tail?
That’s where
the poison is.
And leave
him defenseless
Against his
enemies?
What do you
do?
You get a
sharp knife from the kitchen drawer
And jab it
precisely under the baseboard—
A puddle of
blood staining the saltillo floor tiles.
I hate to
kill things.
Sometimes
you don’t have a choice.
Nov. 2012
Headlights
on the rolling hills
A hand once
swept across
This
darkness, pushing up
The hills that swallow
my headlights,
Pushed up
the hills,
Rising and
dropping in the night,
And I speed along,
60 miles an hour,
scanning for red-eyed coyotes
scrambling across the
road bed.
We meet like
this, at night,
Your
headlights in the rear view mirror,
The ghost light of your car
Sweeping under my car,
Its shadow imprinted on
the hills
And vanishing when you
drop into a dip.
We meet like
this as if the hand
That pushed
these hills in place
So many heart beats ago
Set our wheels in motion.
I don’t want
to be lonely.
I love the
rush of the unknown,
Speeding down these hills at night.
Meant to follow and to lead,
Headlights on a back road.
Over how
many hills will time lead me?
And who will
carry my ashes in a jar
When the
headlights go out forever?
Do you, too,
think about dying
On a dark
road in the desert,
Your
headlights shining in the rear view mirror,
My
car leading the way?
10/29/16
