There's something brutally honest about
A dog in heat ******* your leg.
I'd like to explore this theme with you,
But I can't right now.
I just got home from my
Nightly walk inside the gates
Of my over-55 lunatic asylum,
And I gotta get this down on paper,
VERBATIM.

I'm wearing sandals tonight, unlike
This morning's power walk in Skechers.
I'm strolling around the turn
At the corner of Don January & Lee Trevino,
And look clearly into a curtain-less,
Shade-free living room. BAM!
Poleaxed, gobsmacked, am I.
She's sitting in a Barcalounger,
Spotlighted by a pole lamp.
Naked, her legs spread &
******* herself.
Stunned dead in my tracks, am I.
By this time she's standing in her
Open doorway, calling to me:
"Hello Dere!"
She is a silver-haired sireen,
A granny Marty Allen.
"Take me," she demands.
Sometimes I'm a little slow on the uptake,
But there was no mistaking that invitation.
"Wait right here," I say.
"I want to go home, shower &
Brush my teeth."
"No , you idiot," she answers.
"Take me now."
"I want to be ravished by a brute,
***** by a savage,
A mountain man from Boulder."
I assume she means Boulder, Colorado.

Now, I can't promise that this is a
Daily occurrence at Del Webb Alegria,
"For Active Adults"
But it happened to me.

Walking home I see a crowd.
Some neighbors admiring the
Asian couple's landscaping prowess.
For weeks they've been pulling off a
Green grass to drought-tolerant
Xeriscape switcheroo.
"Bravo!" I yell. "Nicely done!"
Finally, I am home.
Exhausted, I flop down in
My over-stuffed leather armchair.
Pen in hand. Notebook open.
From across the room,
My dog sidles over
A glazed look in his eyes.

The most prominent year of my childhood
Was the one in which we shared a bedroom.
In a classic telling of time dilation,
It's the only part I can recall,
As if we spent years sharing nightmares and visions
And secrets that we buried in the graying carpet.
The carpet is musty
And there is cat hair in our brown hair from when he
Slithers into the dollhouse when
Our backs are turned.
We shake him out and
He bolts down the stairs.
We climb up the stairs in tactile daydreams
Where we can play the piano
And speak boldly. We speak softly
To not wake your mother,
Asleep from the nightshift next room over.
We dig our fingers in the carpet in the mornings
Sat between my mother’s knees
As she pulls our hair into matching styles.
We are uneven twins,
Short and tall,
Curled and straight,
Loud and faint.
Even now, without the matching dresses
Or braids,
Which are now cut and dyed
As if we mutually agreed it was tied to something we needed to forget.
We unlearn the role of xeriscape ghost,
And we hunt the ones that haunted us
When you left after a year,
Your mother pulling you into a car seat,
And mine, indoors.
In another classic case of time dilation,
No time passed at all.

Since I've never had
a green thumb

I chose to write
a poem

that's like a rock garden
no water needed

and no fear of drowning
or of being wrapped

in the winding sheet of
metaphor

Whit Howland © 2020