OPTIONAL POETRY

Somewhere up North a high school band
drilled across the field, the retort of a snare,

the pounding of a bass drum muffled
by distance, floating high above the maples,

the garden placid save for a man shouting
at his child, or his dog, it took all of us

a while to actually listen to the words:
Help, I need help.  And then we ran,

stirrup hoes and trowels in hand
like some volunteer army, found him,

extricated his hand from the weight
that had trapped it.  Not a ripple

in a sky, the breeze shook
the poppies as if nothing

had happened. I pulled them
out in shocking handfuls

as a red bee worried next to
my ear, dangerously close,

no, close as danger.

Marsh Island under a clear sky, 
the power boats come in close

to shore, your dog, afraid
of the bridge grating, jumped

into the water, and you
weren’t quite sure how

to get her back.  Real fear
is nothing to laugh at,

but instinct– you asked
why I was smiling, 

it’s because I know too well
this urge to bail, to go over

the side and swim for shore
while bystanders point 

and shout unhelpful advice. 

Thin envelopes are always trouble.

(At first I wrote it as envelops).

I suppose that is also true,
feeling the terse embrace

of bad news.

What sinks down must 
also rise. My garden 

is dry, the soaker hose
has sprung a leak.  

I’ve almost forgotten
the curve of your 

cheek, distinctive
while smiling,

(a cheek of all things?)
The garlic has sent

out scapes, two 
radishes are bolting,

and all day everyone
has been singing,

the strangest thing.
Even the workman

in the empty apartment
next door could not 

refrain, a few lines 
of some Spanish pop

song that I don’t know
but now find myself 

humming.

Salvation in cartography.

The dictates: paper is better,

preferably bought at a
ramshackle gas station

where a grimy kid tries
to sell you a rock while

you hand her parents cash
because the pumps

are antique because
you are in the middle

of California nowhere
during a burning season

and all the other stations
have sealed up their tanks

not that you’ve seen any
this far out and are a mile

away from hitting empty.

Arterials, arterioles–
I’m drawn to curving lines

and country roads, now
mainly reserved for

inconvenient detours.
Gone the open days

of trying a different way
for the hell of it, unfolding

land on a superheated hood,
the finger-traced disputes

of the good and properly lost.

A thunderhead  of gnats 

rolled in along the shoreline,
a black roil of flight.

Otherwise
these days are limpid,

roses wilting in the heat,
and also 

climbing up the walls.  

And twenty years later,

home 

is still
a moving target. 

I am unsure of the rationale 
of memory: Why, just now

did I recall the way my mamaw
used to microwave fleas

she found on the dog?
How can I still see kudzu 

clamor over the carport
with its smart sedan,

sense grayness
under  old, old oaks? 

Of all things flea-murder
starts the flood: 

a scabby cockroach
in the night;

the sweetness of
the dining room curtains;

thunder, spring frogs,
lightning bugs.  

I’d never seen them before,
never had been so far 

from home, 
and so long from it.  

And that’s the problem 
with working with memories.

It’s work. But I am tired 
of this lake, these trees, 

am unamused by 
the Ship Canal Bridge,

despite a trick of 
angle that makes 

it seem that the cars
are miniatures racing

across the roof
and not a mile out.  

I do not care if
the red kayak

is coming or going,
am not curious

as to why the table
of dental students

is laughing, doubling
over as they toss

a box of floss.
Forced to be

stationary,
I resent all things 

in motion and yet
begrudge time 

for moving too
slowly. 

And at Land’s End, the land did.

With just one whale breaching
offshore,

as if conjured up by
the commotion on the beach, 

not causing it.

Unassuming, 
barnacled and gray,

in alien skin, unaware
of the sunburnt

hordes of tourists, all
peeling red and 

mas cerveza.
Memory tends

to improve a place:

The scale of a sunset
over granite.

Similarly, the landscape
of some faces.