the bikini-clad girl was handled by the cop like:
(a) a prostitute.
(b) a prostitute by her pimp.
a faceless man behind a lost reflection of glass
at a drive-up window informs me,
too bad, you know nothing of your own past
at the thought of her mouth
filled for a moment with both
of our short names. I don’t know
what we saw when we saw
her face, but at fifteen there’s
so much left to believe in,
Don’t be so much in charge, the frogs say,
of coalescing wolverine trails
huddled in 60-million-year pellet tracks
when the wetlands dried out.
Thinking to see them there, captains
industrious in
morning sun, I crack the egg’s tender
yellow head
Maybe she liked me because
we were both black and mostly
alone in the suburbs, but I hadn’t
thought about that. It was her voice
that got me—banked fire, the color
of dusk—her voice, and my name
was smoke in her mouth.
They’re old friends, he and George Bush.
He writes and scolds
the president, every month or so,
about the bombing the children of Iraq
(he made his own sign to carry in protest),
about the plight of the California condor and northern gray wolf,
about more shelters and aid for the homeless.
The lion-shaped bulletin board in his room
is covered with pictures and letters from George,
who must be nice,
even if he is a slow learner.
may I help you?
I am asked by the realtor
standing at the door,
thinking that I may be the guy
who mixed the mud and pushed the wheelbarrow
the stones resting in the driveway, the cat curled asleep
on the front porch, the smear of blood
on the lion's mouth sitting over his fresh gazelle
the morning paper and its stories shouting
for attention. The plenitude of it all.