Road Kill

On a late summer night

southeast of Livermore

tarantulas were on the move.

Hundreds, thousands

going somewhere

only known to them.

We drove slowly, the radio

softly playing corridos and

Conjunto Norteño songs,

trying not to squish

the armies of spiders.

We were looking for snakes.

Just to see them, mostly;

move them off the road.

Didn’t find any that night,

but we did see a San Joaquin kit fox.

A dead one, in the road. It was still

warm and had no visible injuries.

My friend wanted to take it. What? 

She said, For my collection.

It would make a beautiful mount.

We moved it off the road

instead, so it could feed

vultures, beetles, and rats.

Sad that this graceful being

the size of a small cat,

tried to cross a back road

too close to a rowdy cowboy saloon

deep in the dark heat of the Diablo Range,

fifty miles from any town.

Forks

Don’t know why

I dreamt about

salad forks.

They resemble

dinosaur feet

and Satan’s tail.

I’m not worried.

The driveway lizard's fate

I think I’ve discovered

the fate of the disappeared

driveway lizard.

A well-chewed body

minus a tail

-I think she ate it-

lay at the base

of the stairs.

-She was proud of it-

But the mystery remains,

how did the poor fellow

get in the house?

Perhaps a prize

brought in last week

when she made her

brief unsanctioned foray

out the poorly closed

front door? 

A toy for a few moments

until she got bored

and the lizard found

refuge somewhere

under the chest of drawers

in the foyer? Or perhaps

beyond claws reach

under the couch

in the living room.

It’s been a week

since the cat’s foray, so

perhaps the bluebelly lizard

thought there was

an opportunity to escape.

Maybe Lizard is called

the Dreamer with good reason.

Mind far away in the moment.

I hope not. Or I’m doomed. 

Pie

 Use a glove not a shovel.

I was hell on thistles,

dismantling them methodically,

leaf by leaf. Saving the

crown of thorns

for the final decapitation.

Because.

They speared me.

Demonic vegetable kingdom,

with the emperor poison oak,

and the subtle vassals,

burrs and nettles.

Why do blackberries

need thorns? Isn’t the whole

concept of sweetness

supposed to be:

Eat me?

Okay. I get it,

Plenty of sweet,

if you’re plenty discrete.

and pick between

the thorns.

Unless you’re a bird

and it’s easy

because you have a beak.

But birds can’t

bake a pie, it’s a sensitive

subject actually.

Especially in France.

But I know how.

My crust ain’t pretty,

but my filling verges

on divine.

The soldiers mocked Him

with a crown of thorns,

unaware perhaps

that thorns adorn

the sweetness of the vine.

Wildlife

The soft-eyed doe

ate the rose before

the sun rose.

The driveway lizard

disappeared.

I suspect the cats.

Although there are

mornings -where

the stench of skunk

knocks out the scent

of jasmine. and the

turkeys strut and shit.

Things that float

Champagne corks,

three-day old corpses,

soap bubbles,

inflatable plastic ducks.

assassination theories,

toy boats.

Midnight dreams

on a good mattress.

Lenticular clouds.

Icebergs, promises,

maple leaves,

pond scum.

Grace notes,

dandelions, vultures

gossip, laughter.

Rolling the die

For some of us,

there is only God

or opioids.

.

Boxcars or snake eyes.

A thousand shares

of Microsoft.  Edsels.

This place:

how many eons

of volcanos everywhere

and one vast ocean

before the first mud

in the miasma

gave rise to the first

slime?

another couple billion

until the first cells

collided and divided, Sex!

What was God dreaming

all that time?

About Bach and Moses,

the Buddha, Whitney Houston,

and the rest of the divine?

French fries

and Seinfeld?

Krishna, Stalin, Cher?

I heard a poet once,

talk about a peach;

how much he enjoyed it.

How sorry he was that

he ate it because

it was something

that was meant

to be shared.

I think he was

one of those scorpions

trying to hitch

a ride across the river

on the back

of the frog.

However:

I tell myself,

not to forget

the canyon or the stars.

the warm afternoon 

sheets, the tongues.

the pages, one by one.

I went down

to the driveway

to collect mornings’

apocalypse

and ginger salmon recipes

and a robin sang:

Here I am,

love me, make babies,

kill me if you can.

You

I faced the wall

in the darkness,

beseeching, show me.

But you didn’t.

and I wept.

I looked for you

on the roads

that led to desert

wilderness.

all I found was

wind and dust.

I sought to be

the one

who wielded death,

the atom splitting

furnace dropping

from the sky.

And then I felt

your presence?

I think it was you, wasn’t it?

Did I pass the test? 

So I needn’t pay

attention any more

as the years rolled on.

and on. and on.

Until I needed you

again.

Two words were

sufficient: Dear one,

And there you were.

As you had always been

in all the things

I’d seen or places

I had been. 

The birds, the rivers

the deathbeds, the songs,

the silences, the kisses.