air show

airman smith

holds his daughter inez

balanced on his hip.

his wife, dorothea,

leans to stare

at the angry painted face

of the vintage warbird

crouched on the runway.

the balance

he left the bank in agony.

the lunch time crowd,

eating fruit salad or yogurt,

sipping lattes in the mini park

didn't notice when he fell down

at the corner. the stroke his doctor

had been warning of, had finally arrived.

the men who idled daily in the shade

underneath the marquee of the dead

movie theater across the street

levered themselves upright

with their canes and shouted

at the office workers munching

in the park. hey! stop updating

your status and call an ambulance.

so they did. one called 911.

another rushed to the man

and attempted CPR.

a third one removed the passbook

he was clutching tightly in his hand

and opened it to see a balance

of fifty nine dollars and thirteen cents.

somewhere over the rainbow

rainbow dances with gabriel, her old man.

shirtless, barefoot, free in her bib overalls.

raising a small storm of dust around their feet

as they stomp in the packed red dirt of the old

racetrack in the pines where the hot rods

had roared a hundred years before.

gabe grins and grabs her hands.

rainbow slips them loose, snatchs his suspenders

and lets them slap back on his bare chest.

-ouch you little pixie, why are you so frisky?

-because it's such a beautiful night.

and i traded a dozen jars of pickled okra

to wizard for some cedar shingles.

why are you so full of beans and whiskey?

- oh i don't know, could be the way your stuff

moves around in those overalls, girl.

rainbow snaps his suspenders again.

-you sure ain't no angel tonight, gabriel!

i think i see some hooves and horns.

the boogie band slides into their rendition

of sugar magnolia and gabe lets loose a holler.

they dance with such a frenzy,

that nixon, their australian sheep dog

barks at gaia, their golden mutt.

the dogs romp round rain and gabriel's feet.

gaia nips at the tie-dyed neckerchief

around nixon's throat, pulls it loose,

resulting in a canine tug of war.

the band picks up the tempo and rainbow twirls,

her long dreadlocks streaming out behind her,

the very image of her great grandmother

when jerry and the guys were riffing a century before.

stepping out

the men were standing

in the aisle of the bus

hanging from the straps

talking about IUDs and AK47s,

then the plump smiling woman

said to one of them,

do you have two brothers, twins?

and he said yeah,

did you go to washington?

she did. and they recalled

a favorite pizza parlor

and caught up on the people

they had known who died.

he asked her if she stepped out.

no, not really, she said,

i go to church. how's your mother?

on the lawn

on a bright spring sunday,

a man in a mint ice cream

colored suit stood on the lawn

beside the cracked asphalt

basketball half court.

eight people in t-shirts, jeans

and running shoes lined up

against the cyclone fence

listened to him speak and

watched his hands entreat

the clouds to pay attention.

the lamb knows what

the wolf don't. what the wolf

can't ever see. only love

can save you. without love

you have no more chance

of salvation, than tuna

escaping from the can.

the box

a cardboard box

where somebody

had written goodwill

in fat red block letters

and someone else

had scratched it out

with black.

it held an envelope

of cancelled checks,

several journals

aborted after

the first few pages,

a dozen drugstore

snapshots of some

unremarkable sunset

held together with

a rusty paper clip

and smelling faintly

of formaldehyde.

a xerox of a poem

about larks and flowers

by joseph stalin,

a pair of shoelaces

still wrapped in 

yellowed woolworths

cellophane, a bakelite

art deco letter opener,

seven pennies,

a .22 caliber bullet,

a sandstone pebble,

the front section

of a newspaper

from 1964 with

a feature story

about hells angels.

a mouse had gnawed

an entrance to the box

built a nest of shredded

tax returns, left behind

a scattering of little turds.

some white granules

he did not remember.

were they arsenic,

salt, or sugar?

questions for the water

her life was on her face,

all their signatures.

every kiss and argument.

she knew that bliss

walks hand in hand

with sorrow. she asked

the naked willows

bent beside the brief
november stream, but

they shared no truths,

because fallen leaves

write no scripts

and she was not

conversant with

the language of trees.

her bath was never

long enough, no big

questions ever answered,

just the water,

obedient to

the planet's spin,

bearing her small,
but unforgotten bits,
spiraling down the drain.