Walking up to the brown house,
smelling vanilla and sweat,
thumping bass,
combs in back pockets.
Chain link and clapboard siding.
Smoothing hair
then letting it fly.
Watching a turtle tread water
in a disco tank,
cupcakes awaiting frosting
on the counter.
House plants in macrame houses.
Wicker chairs and paper fans
pushing the heat around.
Plastic shoes and wooden masks,
clinging t-shirts with jelly-colored logos
rehearsing secret handshakes
with weeks left of summer.

Clarity is a soft wish
made by men with ties tied too tightly.

Where is the childlike faith
we had in flowering youth?

We’re painting ourselves
into a sterile corner,
with lay-Z boys and pop-top drinks
fizzing to drown out a din of inequity.

What about the miracle of touch
breaching pages of old rules?

Looking for light
is for gardeners and silly dreamers.

It was almost midnight
when a classic work let me down
and the mailbox waved, inciting
spider riots below the red flag.
I argued against having pizza in limbo.

This is no hipster beer commercial;
fuzz gets in the way
and clarity is a pipe dream.

Don’t tell me
with satellite technology,
you can’t make a painless mammogram
or find D.B. Cooper
(that’s hoakum!).

Ideas are free range;
flowers are burning,
and dessert smells like moth balls.

Just before slip of night,
I hear him
through whispered promise
of summer leaves
trembling under a lush moon–
let us go gently,
he says,
together, like favorite words
in a well-loved book.

It was big band,
billowing chiffon,
with a touch of cigar
that reminded her
of mandolin echoes,
sticky flannel,
and swirling woodsmoke
of an almost lost autumn.