Sundown on the Child

Suburban patriarch

puffs up florescent inflatables

and vacuums the pool.

Kids coming,

grandkids too,

reunion for most of us,

introduction for the intendeds 

and the baby.

Graduation is the cover,

envelopes and cameras,

the youngest is now a legit

know-it-all, her siblings hover

to praise and tease and eat.

The light of our world is freed

from roll call and on parade.

We watch her wave to the grandstand

and pray she adjusts her mirrors,

top down on the Volkswagen,

sundown on the child

raised up in the Way.

Dust to Must

Undone monks grapple

torn asphalt.

Cat shriek walls fall

in cement birthday layers

of caked infants,

mothers missing in mirrors,

a teacher's hand

flower pressed to a chalk

board of promise.

Emergency coffees riffle,

winged fingers make eye bridges.

The graves got greedy,

water drowned the bare mountains,

bamboo curtains slapped against

a window to the world.

We have long lost these uncles

of surging rice cups and water.

Shelter is a bag and sticks.

Family is any pulse in a storm.

Our living room is any part of a paycheck

in  relief.

The face of a nation

is held in the heart of a neighbor,

there's no denying two denarii won't do

what's due, but duty

isn't beauty, until it's you.

From dust, to must we

lift from the mud again, orphaned

resurrection from the suction

of martyred mire. 

The swinging Hand in the bucket

brigade is pierced,

its more than necessary now, to know

we're not alone.

Municipal Portion

I sprint to adjust the lawn watering

dervish device, illegal these many drought months

and then the day before a downpour,

I catch the outermost drops

on my satisfied boots.

There's a mortgage on

each blade of grass,

a second on the fence vines.

Our shade oak of righteousness

drinks in its municipal portion,

careful to stretch toward God

in a wireless sky.

The younger maple is spitting

a worrisome leaf curl,

the years old hurricane break

nearly exposed. Easy to see

not yet competing canopies

will make a front yard marriage

of trees, proud Papa, ever ready

at the rake.

Comes with Thorns

The vase is a pulpit

of the backyard rose,

snipped in prime

for appreciative sniffing

of the decorative predator.

Is it any wonder

it comes with thorns ?

The Lincoln, Stewart, American

Beauty burst to fragrance

of fresh torn black cherry

Jello pack.

We name ours after favorite

Red Sox Outfielder Coco Crisp

and bear the pollen stuffed nose

and sneeze as dues

of cultivation.

The storeboughts cause cancer

in Ecuador, pesticide runoff

suffocating fish.

The ugly cost of beauty

marring Mother's Day profits.

Long stems in the arms

of champions and queens,

we made this bed of

short sighted petals,

parading a legacy

of skin spotted

leaves.