USA

kirby33@earthlink.net 

Freeway March

On 280 to San Francisco, driving my insomnia north,

Fighting mergers in these opening rounds of freeway.

Wife sits in back seat, Mother-In-Law up front.

Steel rail keeps us from people heading south.

Typic is one human per car, steering empty

Seats. No penalty for being alone, no car pool lane

 

To make you feel guilty. Cowboy in Bronco rides the range.

Lexus woman yawns. I cough. Bob's Supply Co. van

Speeds up, passes. Most drive with both hands on wheel,

Hands at 2 and 10. Service is 10 a.m. How we separate deter-

Mines height of sky. Ceiling fogs. Mother-In-Law looks

Forward to "Russian goodies" after service. Wife wants roses

Sent to Great Aunt's home, not Mausoleum. Funeral talk.

Church is Russian Orthodox. Coats hang in back seat

Next to Wife. Umbrella waits in trunk. We pass flat tire,

Car jacked up, hazard lights, a man sprawled on asphalt

Shoulder. Remember the Good Samaritan? I worry about

32 p.s.i. in all my tires. We pass one another through air,

On air, on routine missions to air-conditioned offices.

Mother-In-Law mentions squirrels eating peanuts on

Fences. We watch one another through glass and mirrors,

Spill coffee on the sunrise. Freedom means talk on

Phone, snap on clip-ons, shave with a portable, drink from

The stained walls of a mug. Blue signs advertise Call Box

Every 200 yards. Telephone lines loop over

280, wires joining voices. Mother-In-Law speaks

Birthday lunch, Van Gogh Show, realizing

Claustrophobia in the underground garage.

I remember Great Aunt's porch blooming roses, trellis a

Wall of orange blossoms. Lemon trees yellow and green.

Wife asks Mother if she's feeling cold. Mother-In-Law

Pulls on sweater. Look at all that traffic moving south.

From the back seat, Wife throws me a kiss in the rear-

View mirror —I catch it, carry it far beyond our exit.

At the Stanford Park

The sun detonates the end of August.

Date palms explode the sky.

A boy with breasts backstrokes the pool.

Waves slap the greasy tiles, spray Futurestone.

A dove sips from a crack.

Speedo man sweats jumping jacks.

Marigolds wilt in courtyard boxes.

A forest blooms beyond the flowers.

Bikini hands lotion legs and shoulders.

She is Venus with lavender toenails.

A jet cuts the blue—the sun weakens.

Women study Venus through tinted glasses.

Men contemplate the silicon climate.

A wasp lands on my towel.

Newspapers and cloth slippers cover the ground.

A New York husband leaves his Boston wife.

He heads east, chasing yellow light.

A wedding balloon floats to the moon.

The ice plant closes its blossoms.

A breeze stirs a cyclone fence choked with ivy.

Behind the fence, a forest woman suckles her baby.

Giant oaks shadow us all.

© All Copyright, 2000, Kirby Wright.
All Rights Reserved. Printed By Permission.