Porch Light

Late summer, early evening bat

picks off no-see-ums

under circling swallows,

once again humidity reminds me

what i have in common with Banderas

is sticky t-shirts and jeans.

I down a bucket of iced hibiscus

and plot pennant races,

eager beaver stars

pop between whispering clouds,

ain't nothing here to hold

til it turns blue,

everythings numbered,

even the days til the stitches

come out of my dog's eye.

The command is to be still

and know which side the Bread of Life

is buttered on. Easier to face

in the face of a breeze, cricket chorus and solo

frog adding harmony to 

folded hands and bending knee.

Porch light plays out the night,

waiting for the prodigal,

robe folded in my lap,

the weight of a ring

turning cool in my palm.

Civics

The dog days are not

a month to me, unless

it rains, I stash plastic baggies

in my civic duty pockets 

and allow two morning leashes

to pull my shoulder sockets

to the curb.

The still orange sun bedazzles

dew wet tips of fresh mowed green

as a squadron of dragonflies

hums yellow and blue beside us,

the pup following a nose

with time leaps of its own,

the matron content to trot a long,

as long as I follow protocol.

I married into this privilege

of seemly suburban postcardism,

convicted by an Irish movie script,

"if ya cain't love a dog, ya cain't love anything."

For all my choir singing and grace before meals,

it's somehow very tidy

that the depth of my heart is known

by morning romps and brushings

and fresh water in a bowl.