It’s just a metaphor,
but bad things happen
when you take your
eye off the ball. Like
the time I fell putting my
pants on, spraining my
ankle, distracted by a
jogger in a sports-bra
glimpsed out the bathroom
window; like the woman in
Pittsburg who mistakenly
poured bleach in her husband’s
seven-n-seven contemplating
her black eye in a mirror; or
like the trucker in Oklahoma
reaching for his phone
across the seat, plowing
head-on into a school bus,
killing seven.

It’s five o’clock; the coffeepot
rattles, sputters, gurgles as I
assemble lunch and feed the cat;
another morning, another dark
beginning to an endless stretch
of days flowing to some unknown
rendezvous where it all ends, what-
ever it is, wherever what is where
it is when it ends—the normal beat
upends such morning meditations.

It’s so hot when I walk outside
sweat begins to bead; I wonder
when we’ll reach the September
divide when the first front moves
down from the north, sending leaves
scurrying forth, plopping outsized
raindrops on the dusty earth. The
rain falls south along the coast, or
follows the freeway, leaving our
trees to brown, and gasp, and die.

Drought clutches the ground like
an ardent lover not to be denied,
sprinklers but a feeble effort to
fight off its insatiable lust to ****
the very marrow from the land,
scattering dead pines and blanched
oaks in ones and twos and threes
across lots and yards whose green
grass and manicured gardens belie
the dying waste that’s setting in.

The morning light oozes in from
the East, a sickly yellow glow on
the jagged tree line invading the
darkness behind a band of blue;
as I ease out onto the two-lane
toward the freeway where already
cars are stacking up in their rush
south toward the city’s towers,
the radio lists the casualties of
the latest shooting madness and

I begin to wonder about those in
power, and how they sleep with
so much carnage, before I remember
power and psychopathy are close
allied, and those who serve serve
only to survive. I then negotiate
the on-ramp to another day where
minutes, like cars, flash relentlessly
by in multi-colored hues, and death
rides shotgun in ones and twos.

Under the unremitting clarity of a
summer sky they met, one last time,
to say goodbye. She, stiff and puckered
as a frozen prune, could barely force a
smile, a thin rictus across the swollen
softness of her face, like the blackened
lightening **** down the pine she stood
beside.

He put his right hand on the trunk,
leaning in to look her in the eyes, his
shaven head bending into shadow, his
newly-minted uniform crinkling into place:
“It’s only a year,” he said; “the war’s almost
over. I’ll be back before you know it. We’ll
have the biggest wedding this town has ever
seen!”

His shining smile beguiled her, as it always
had. Her mouth unfroze, a salty tear prickling
on her tongue: “Don’t you go and get yourself
killed,” she said; “I can’t raise junior on my own.”
She patted her yet unswollen belly with her
right hand, placing her left on his bending face.
“Don’t let Curtis lead you on; he’s crazy. You’ll die
there.”

At that he laughed, a solid, good-natured
sound, as he drew back his head and grabbed
her hand in his. “I’ll be careful,” he said. “We
can Skype every night. I’ll be with you every
day.” He paused, looking up at the cone poised
above his head. “I’ll be able to go to college; I
can work; we’ll live with Mom; you’ll see; it’ll be
fine.”

“We’ll live with MY mom,” she said, smiling
up at him. He laughed again, putting his arms
round her shoulders, pulling her close, bending
down for one last kiss: A cloud obscured the
sun, throwing them in shadow, as he whispered
“I’ll be back. I love you so.” He straightened,
gave a salute, turned precisely, and headed to the
bus.

Under the unremitting clarity of a
summer sky they said goodbye, she—
to have and raise a son, he—to
die.

Sun & shadow
Green & blue
Here & now
Me & you.

Brown & fallow
Orange & pied
Dusk & sallow
Since you died.