Cherry Grove
All around the old place,
the dead visit. The
day he opened up the trunk
of that sweetgum tree,
and before we saw the
horseshoe hanging inside,
something brushed against
my face. I heard
far away,
leather and candlewax.
found an anvil half
inside an oak tree, back
by the old barn. It was ten
feet up that tree, and
the color of storm clouds
when the air smells like metal
and electricity breaks
it right in two. They say
a shipwright lived
there once. I know.
I've heard him hammering.
That was before the rumor
of the slave revolt across
the road. Nineteen men killed,
tortured, all for the sake
of a child's tale. A child
named Obey. No excuses.
The crape myrtle we cleared from
the back forty bled claret-
colored sap, and stuck inside
one old, stubborn knot
was a skeleton key.
tarnished forks and bone-
china plates. Daddy said
she burned that house a’purpose,
took the tram to the train
and left town. Nobody
Ever saw her again.
But to be frank, I don't
believe it.
I saw her walking in the fog
one morning, early. Picking bones,
rearranging bricks,
breaking twigs over and over.
She saw me too.
We've been talking
back and forth, she and I,
between the branches.
The Journey
I spent the day enfolded
in the car, searching for reasons
not to go home, yearning for something
I couldn't name. I'd left the inland desert,
traversed the valley and listened to
the songs of my youth.
A young Neil Young sang
to the old man I'd become
and I was struck with such
a sudden sadness it shocked
me from my reverie.
I looked around at other drivers,
their faces expressionless, resigned.
And no one saw the difference.
The car rode the crest
of the Sepulveda Pass and eased
into its descent like rolling off
a bed mid-dream. Before you know it
you've hit the floor, slightly hurt
and wondering how you'd not
seen it coming.
The Getty loomed like Mount Zion
in the dirty sky, all angles and white.
The trolley sidled up the canyon wall
like a magician delivering sinners to Saint Peter.
The City of the Angels crouched like a cat
below, and the air suddenly changed.
I exited on Santa Monica Boulevard,
and waited at the light. The bums are back.
It's like it was in the '80s, and everything
new is old again. The blush of dusk hung
like a persimmon on the horizon.
Numb with anonymity, I followed the stream
of lights that curled back into the valley.
This is all there is. No rhyme. No reason.
Just this. And more of this.
I stopped at Circle K for milk,
and when I turned the corner
onto Copperhill, I stopped.
A coyote. In the sweep
of the headlights, he was
beautiful and lithe and seemed
right at home, even here.
I wanted to tell him so.
He trotted easily, crossed the street,
unafraid. He stopped at the edge
of the brush and turned to watch
me, as if to tell me something.
"Go home."
And I cried because home is so very far away.
She walked in dappled brown
The trees emboldened in
Their bare embrace
Reached down, carressed
her freckled frown
from their anchored
heights to touch her face
A pile of tiny bones
Ivory needles in forgotten
Threads. Small
Among the roots and rotten
Acorns put away
Peeked out and shuddered
Hid itself away
Circled round like fiddlefern
Tiny boxes, vertebrae
soft as chalk
And fragile whispered
Under baby's breath
Don't leave
She knelt, blinded by the dapples
Darting through the trees
That sighed and shivered.
Enchanted by its size,
She lay beside it gently
Closed her eyes and smiled
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