You know you’re in
The choicest of spots,
When, staring out the window
You feel a gaping void wheeze
Inside you. Bang, bang, bang,
Flounders a bluebird against
The plate glass. Slap, slap,
Thump, drops the sad truth
Through your bones. So there
It all is. Live Oak. Magnolia.
Mulberry bush. No one
& everything. All there.
Edged sharp by the white-
Hot sun, an old woman wheel-
Chairs by, gnawing at
The mush in her fist
Beneath the tiny umbrella
Duct taped to the chair.
Everyone & nothing.
All of it, of us. Good old
American folk with our
Failing & voluptuously bodies.
Dogs bark as she scoots
By the bluebonnets planted
On the street’s edge. I say
Pick a number, any number—
There are millions of ways
All of this is being destroyed
& who, what’s next? What
Needs us? I say, I say, I say—
The wheel chair is just a ball
Of silvery light down the street
When I see the car out there
That can parallel park without
The driver. What is that music?
What fills my ears when I watch
My neighbor lift his hands
From the wheel & give me
A thumbs up, grinning,
As the sleek-curved car
Reverses perfectly
Into the tight spot?