My grandpa wore a straw hat.
The edges were jagged like split ends,
And the top was flat.

It never matched his shirt,
And always rested too low on his face.

Slush rests on the
cracks of my tattered shoes.

The blackness of night  
gives my face the blanket of
obscurity I need.

Empty trash cans,
locked car doors.

As my only coat begins
to give way to winter’s unrest,
salvation is spotted.

Someone has left me an opportunity.
Were they distracted?
Drunk perhaps.

I walk over and pick it up.
I can make the figure of
its owner in a distant window.

He doesn’t need this.
I need this.

A light flickers
and threatens my anonymity.

I pocket my treasure,
and make for the comfort
of the dark.

It pokes at my hip bone,
and settles nicely next to the others.

When a child falls
through an open window,
It falls in silence.

No one knew it was going to happen.
The day was warm with
sun and adolescence.

Everyone had their windows open
to welcome the mid-day breeze.
They invited it inside
for a tour of their homes
to alleviate the late August heat.

Maybe this is what distracted them.
Maybe it was the cracks of sticks
snapping under my feet.
The chains of swings sending
boys to impossible heights.

Or maybe it was the birds
that cried their final goodbyes
as summer turned into dying leaves.

All of these sounds must have
stormed into the room,
deafening the protectors inside.

Because when a child falls
through an open window,
It falls in silence.

It picks up speed as it brushes
the second floor window,
until it meets the grass
with a helpless thump.

And the chains stop squeaking.
Footsteps become standstill.
Laughter fades away
into an unfamiliar mute.

Silence becomes the sound
of my playground dreamland.

The breath of sixty people lying
on top of me in a dark semi truck
in Nuevo Laredo when the sun is
at its driest.
The puffs of hot, dying life spew out
of paisanos and slowly burn the
back of my neck.

I look at you now
so true in form,
the light tickling your
gentle façade while you
welcome it inside for
a tour of your essence, and

I wonder; how do you do it?
Always hold my hand
when I struggle to create.
Now that I need you,
you look my way
and humbly nod. When

I ask you to paint the
words on my canvas,
you stroke the curves
of each vowel so they rival
a mammoth’s trunk
sending bliss
to his eager mouth. If

I taste loss, you taste
opportunity. A falling
leaf becomes a hopeful soul
traveling to a new world. And

I thank you for that. For taking
what I leave muddled in
my mind, and making poetry.

The first drop came without warning.
Clashing against the soil,
sending fragments in every direction.
The second drop was inevitable.
Landing directly next to the first,
swallowing it, becoming more.

The ferns rejoiced
for salvation was a rarity here.
Standing with their mouths agape,
they quenched their dwindling spirits.

But salvation was relentless.
The third and fourth drops came,
Followed by a fifth and a sixth.
The seventh brought dismay
and the eighth brought surrender.

Disheartened, the ferns looked
to the drops colliding with their skin,
then looked down to the parchedness
where the beetles clung to shelter.