1/4/10

4 Corners

    On this Corner

  Gawking    at this house
       my glasses catch
    the reflection of passing vehicles
      just long enough to blot
         out a window
      or a door
      or a porch railing
   even the squirrel hanging
        on the gutter.

All of it
    actually
       is unimportant
  it doesn’t matter
    if this house is blue
    or         yellow
       it’s only a speck
          in a life         passing by

What if the corner house was gone tomorrow?
    Would it matter

          if that house changed
       colors—orange to teal, added
       a door
       or a window
       or a room        even
           walled-up every knob
              and screen
     but the back door?


    Across from the Dying Pine

The sidewalks are silent.
A single bird chirps
in the dying pine     across the road.

Over a rooftop, the sun
can be seen, and so can the moon.
The sidewalks are silent

before the wind and smoking chimneys.
I come here every morning,
across from the dying pine,

to sit and capture blackberries and squirrels in my mind
before they are lost
to the pounded sidewalks.

Why does this day need to be broken with rain?
Why not enjoy
the dying pine across the road? while
the sidewalks are silent.


    The Stop Sign

In front of me
   are four letters
   that command
   wanting me to obey
But often
   I snub the octagon
   brush the red
   from my sight
A four letter word
   so pounding      how
   can I ignore
        but I do
        and so do others
I command you
to
STOP        this poem


    Up To the Large Metal Z On the Chimney

a siren stops
right at this corner
below the Z attached to the chimney
the echo cutting my ears

my eyes    my fingertips    shoved
in my ears
blocking the emergency

from my mind
my brain stares
up to the large metal
Z    grasping onto the chimney

an ambulance loads
with gurney        medical box
pulling technician’s arm longer
to reach up and yank
that Z down        to tell me
the meaning
how the woman        belongs to the Z

and they attach it
to her snoring heart
wrapping the body silently

the siren stops

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