“WALLET”
Business cards
twenty-two dollars
two cookie fortunes
photo of us
front yard
before school
business suit
drill team uniform
clouds and sun
behind us
new houses
going up across the street
I don’t recall that day
those years
a soup of gravel
floating bones and beer
now here in the desert
the slow sun rising
as I look through shutters
almost in sleepwalk
and you in the spray
of remote shores
your new
untranslatable search
“NO GRAVE”
just waves
reprisals
screeching gulls
stray ash blew
onto my sleeve
at the sea-burial
clouds would not evaporate
inflexible gray sky
you, my strong father,
boxer, sailor
vanished without
cordiality of sun
into the sea
caught in currents
taken to undetermined shores
or the sea’s floor
where no fierceness
or winds
or clouds
matter at all
“LONG FIELDS OF LONG GRASS”
A world of light and freedom
like his mother’s prayers
sending him to golden dirt
in golden dusk
His father will belt him
for lateness
His dog in the toolshed
whimpering
He threw oranges
in the orchards
swam in the weir
ate a pomegranate
snatched from a tree
afternoon clouds
floating like angels
Once home, shadows,
then clenching, restless sleep
In the morning, fetch
the eggs, consoling clacks
and clucks of chickens
Each day a blue-and-white world
laughing with crows
earth turning
himself spinning
and when the winds
arrived, everything glassy
the long fields of long grass
a shimmering sea of gold