Zinnias planted

Mexican Sunflowers too

Hummingbirds waiting

sits outside the Loyal before it opens,
Budweiser in hand. The radio in his lap
blares “La Grange.” I nod hello. His eyes
might not be open behind his sunglasses.
Hours later, the bartender scolds his
friend to go home, that he can’t come
back inside. But not that guy. That guy
just leans in his chair.
                                          In two days
that guy walks up York toward the river,
wears a coat too warm for June, but he
doesn’t seem to sweat. That guy, he’s
a legend, a machine. Later that day,
he hangs at the bus stop–real chill–
and slouches down a cheeseburger. 

I like the shadows left by leaves on the cement after it rains,
like a whisper of a thought that is lost before it is formed.
The world quiets down, just for a moment,
and everything feels like it could be something
but isn’t yet.
I wonder if the leaves know how they look
against the wet gray of the sidewalk,
if they care that the shadows they leave behind
are just as fleeting as the light they came from.
There’s a softness in how it all fades,
like nothing’s urgent,
like everything can simply pass
without needing to be understood.
It’s the kind of peace that doesn’t ask for anything,
but settles anyway.

Cros-country (serenyu #5)

Lies fall lame as Truth gallops bareback, clearing all fences and ditches.

A murder of crows are gathered.
Trapped. In seperate cages as not to compare tales.
They’re gifted stories with unique plot twists built in.
Each grow to their own conclusions.
Positive responses are rewarded with dried fruit
and shiny treasures. 

If ever united and free from the gilded cages
made specifically for them, 
let’s hope they don’t confer and realize the fables
weaved into their reality by a storyteller,
who either way, ends up alone, 
their identity unknown,
for its measured by crows. 

an octopus pressed
purpled flesh against cool glass,
slowly opened one
keen humanoid eye and cocked
a quizzical brow at me.

The Invasive Potential of a Forget-Me-Not:

I knew old people
Who were lively,
Filled with laughter,
Youthful, fun.

Promised myself I would be one.
How hard can it be
To just keep being who you are
As the years pass by.

But that was not an option.
Funerals change you.
Your grandparents,
Your aunts and uncles,
Dozens of your classmates,
All of them are gone.

Both of your parents,
Three of your best friends,
Your sister,
Your own child,
Are gone,
And you cannot be who you were.

Little laughter is left in you,
Little impulse for fun,
And you wonder how shallow
One would have to be
To be light-hearted now.  

You cannot reflect a light
That no longer shines on you.

The stone trough
before the pyramid
seems a place for offerings –
maize or cacao,

jade or obsidian.
But our Mayan guide tells us
the winner of the annual
games was beheaded there

as a blood sacrifice to the gods,
that his immediate entry into
heaven was an envied prize.
Our guide is perplexed  

that back home, we elected
a president of boundless
greed, certain that this prize
is a nightly visit by the devil.

Life like an onion of old