“The Reader and I Take a Walk”

The sidewalk was wet

and so were our shoes.

We saw that man leaning

up against his Buick,

like a rusted chimney

spewing smoke into

thick blanket of night.

He seemed a ghost,

white sheet

with holes for his eyes and mouth.

Two feet stared up at us,

pulling our body into the concrete;

we walked.

I’ll tell you

I saw that patch of clover

crowding around that

torpid tree.

You know that I stopped dead

in my path.

You take those two steps

away from this pastoral scene with me.

We breathe in that sweet air

speckled with the scent of vanilla.

We feel the grit of midnight

fog licking our skin like a blood hound.

Then, maybe we hear

the susurrus of that Golden-Crowned Kinglet.

Maybe, we might think

that the beads of water on that powerline

look like pearl clinging

to a single strand of silk.

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