For Bobby

​

Even as summer rises, green leaves rustling, whetting their edges
I'm the inside of a fence stalking the out, a driver, too young to shoot,
doves tearing through the husks as we marched, car alarms,
firing one at a time, up the block, sun like an overwashed bedsheet
above glances back over rolling shoulders at the crack of a shot,
clack of the jaw of the dead. That changing air—cold eating
through jeans into long underwear, taillights disappearing,
breeze ticking the dried leaves twisted in place like frozen rags.
Next day, Sunday, shared bed, Casey Kasem, smell of dog, chaff on the carpet.
 

I still prefer to wake up that way,
window open,
dedicating songs to lost causes.
You in the ground, me above it, same dirt.
Keeping an eye
on the driver beside me
maintaining the line, ceremony of our season.

​

​

 

Note: This poem appears in the collection Disappearing by the Math, Silver Bow Publishing, Canada