It is celebration: a cot hovers.
Balloons bunch grapelike off
the ceiling, suspend a bicycle in a
front wheelie. Fifty red ones
say “I love you” in white, and the
others are spongebob, donald
duck, and starting to wilt. A ladder
hangs from a cluster,
and a fire extinguisher. Tracing the
scales of the dragon
from its tail, its paper spines
brandished in two ridges,
we terminate at a gigantic head.
Once, a woman with kind eyes and a sun hat gave me directions in a voice so pure and sweet that I trusted her completely. I would have trusted her with anything; she did not ask for anything, but if she had, I would have given it gladly. She only said, Turn left, then turn right at the light, then keep going. Eventually you will see it on your left. I smiled and thanked her and she smiled back, a soft, comfortable smile that kept me warm and safe.
at funerals, dad counts cars. this, for him, is the supreme unit for measuring someone’s legacy: how many people drank so much of your spirit that they’d follow a train through homewood calling your name? he cannot remember how many cars followed his mother’s hearse. he says the hearse smelled like leather & the dead&thedying & sharp cologne applied too heavily to disguise the scent of tears&hardliquor.
Sometimes the rain evaporates
before it hits the ground.
It shows up in streaks
down the sky, suspended
over the land. And from many miles
away you can point to those streaks
and say, Look, look,
it’s raining.
This is summer. The crops
are drying. The river changes color
as it heaves toward you
because whatever does fall
washes the iron oxide
down the hills, over the banks.
