Touring Egypt

Touring Egypt

The nest above the garage belongs to a finch.
Mine is the savaged arm below the pillow —
raised veins, petechiae — dozens.
Ghost today, memory tomorrow,
age deals this unexpected sanction
of intimate loss, the body’s lurch
apart. Oh, for a package tour of Egypt,
vector idly picked to intercept
this slapdash, two-bit lurch
toward derivatives I don’t sanction —
rude death, wait for tomorrow.
Impelled to nurture another dozen
(lice & worms fattening the nestlings’ pillow)
each spring this blithe finch.

Atlanta, 1955

Esther, John, Carol, David

Atlanta, 1955

The whistle — descending third — meant home.
How wonderfully far that familiar sound
traveled at dusk to children bicycling round
suburban streets yellow with ragweed bloom.
Tonto, Geronimo, wannabe hounds of hell
played hide & seek in half-built houses
pressing on pastures of last-chance cows
fated to fuel Atlanta’s urban swell.
Up to the school, down to the pond, a zoom
around a corner to the corner store
where no one had coins so our gang
leader stole. We seemed impossibly far
when dinnertime tolled & pronto — hunger pangs.
Oh! There were mothers, whistling us home.

Bullseye

Bullseye

Driving home I shake at what I’ve done —
handfuls of grapes prised from their stems,
their tart flesh juiced between my teeth,
the bottle of cold beer a welcome balm.
Four ticks the women struggled to release,
troublesome barbs lodged in skin,
the imminent threat of Lyme Disease an old
refrain, fables victims told, the flood
of horror — leeches fastened to tender skin.
Sleep continues to be my best release —
dark, cotton, arm under pillow, balm
until I wake at midnight, heart in my teeth,
slung from the highest trunk, branch, stem.
Guilty, I am. Oh for this dream to be done!