sestina

kids on their way to school picking oranges

cute, but there’s something noir about it, something blue

some of them have plastic bags on their hands

like you use for poop, so I keep my distance…

some of them have enormous backpacks, really

really big ones for their new lifetime supplies

what will their mothers do with their supplies?

how many bowls might they sacrifice? like the orange

bowl that holds the beans right now, or the really

tiny bowl for the tacks painted in a serious black and blue

perhaps the oranges might get spread out with distance

around the house so everyone can always get their hands

on one regardless of which room "wash your hands!"

say the mothers when it comes to eating orange supplies

the kids with their backpacks with their secrets get distant

they get territorial they say “mom you didn’t pick these oranges”  

the mothers might roll their eyes and walk outside into the blue

afternoon, golden, beautiful, it’s California is what it is, really

truly beautiful with birds chirping at a marbled sky, really

feels like a vacation all the time, with rings on their hands

little stones glistening in the syrupy sun some bright rocky blue

walking around the dirt yard they step over piles of earthquake supplies

such as water, crunchies, lemons, greens, pop ups and orange

jars of peaches with such light fair one could travel a great distance

from where the wood has piled up to the fruit trees is a distance

vast as a state of mind with distant sharp metallic noises and really

bright sun showers- ditching the day with a pour of violette orange

back in the dirt yard the neighbors drop by to dig holes with their hands

cute tool sets with ant farms and knives they all come well supplied

a plastic bag with more plastic bags inside and one is light blue

they all know that post orange is blue

almost black, a night with a long, serious distance

til day til each kid will be sunned fed and supplied

with all the proper vitamins like B K FISH S N and really

quickly they zip up their packs and slide into plastic their hands
leaving a trail of zest behind them as the scan the ground for fallen oranges

Same Party

an aisle seat view of
3 train cars ahead
all open sesame like
pink twinkies or
sausage links
swaying heavily

people are puffy

it's new year's eve
and down coats are going
about their special occasions
each one a twin in the cold

one may as well trudge along
with their train neighbor
linking arms! or just sipping air
puffy and stoic
in the dark black like friends
as if
walking in silence is comfortable
as if the same party is theirs

and when they pass a warmly lit window
framed by faux frost and dried chilis
one down shadow enters the shop
and the other keeps walking
one down shadow orders a bun
and the second gets mugged
not long after

the old days, the pink tea parlor

some pink silence
some soft waiting
it's a moving clock!
arms and hands
little puffy sausages!
gripping the little poles
the cold train on the tracks
covered and accented by
mostly dark but some
cuddy gems in the teeth
or a buried ring
draped with a glove
like a little dead body
in their bed

still with wonder perhaps
of mauve, of dead pink
of open doors, the
meaning of express

or the feeling of express
the feeling of the sausage
cars lining up quickly
stars lining up quickly
a secret tea parlor blown out
online, so we stand in a queue
on the bloody ankle where
there is no view
from either end of this little curved road
so no one can see what happens here
in the middle
so
gangsters used to give each other
bloody ankles here
outside the tea parlor

Mobile

Settling into the pumpkin patch
The passenger seat lulls me to sleep
When the sun is setting
I am the cold dark shadow of a dog
sleeping in the grass with crisp outlines
I am the shadow of your hand