Ebony Didn't Come HomeThe neighborhood's a drain
with dry weeds clogging
every manhole and the gutters
slick with newsprint,
where the kids run
rip-rap
down the alleys
and are gone.
Which way did this girl, Ebony,
walk home from school?
See, trash collects
against the cyclone fences.
Nothing but the wind
gets through.
The great blue sky
keeps bunching thunderheads
which is the neighbors'
only news.
February 24
Swimming is only metaphor
for eyes arms hands
the soul bare
as morning. This morning
a man walks in an orchard
in a drunkenness of blossoms
such fragrant pink hair.
He forgets to count
his fingers, his breath
goes on without him,
his lips nothing but
portals of flesh
become air.
Spring Peepers
The northside of oaks and granite
deepens to a green that isn't spring --
not quite. From the thinnest twigs
moss sucks silver out of twilight.
Here, before the oaks drift off
to darkness and the rocks sink
into earth, one big-throat jazzman
at a boggy edge of pond
starts improvising green.
Poetry |