us
Tell me about the
lazy days
and I will recollect summer
nights like a basket full of
yarn tattered strings blowing
in the wind, colorless
Mama’s cotton
linen on the line, the moon like
a basketball in the sky
before the idea of college
the smell of success
and mother’s spilled milk,
her midnight attempt
with a razor meant for
shaving her eyebrows
We were thin‐skinned kids
tongues a perpetual red
from the choke‐cherry slurpees
we washed down our gullets and
a pocket full of stolen
Slim‐Jims
from the corner store
We always had a get‐away plan
young criminals that we were
the Korean manager,
just as cliche
as us
all those times
we spat
in the wind
The desert had yet to set
us in our ways
the sun a golden pocket
watch on the other side of the
globe
I saw it sink
between the handlebars
of my second‐hand blue
beach cruiser each lazy warm
afternoon we spent together
A town with too
many rich ranchers
and not enough rivers
these were those days
before we baked into the
gingerbread figurines we became
knees still malleable, flexible
and young for good tree climbing
a tussle with our current bitch
mutt‐dog in our dirt‐packed back
yard
Your smile was not yet shattered
my ribcage still intact our
breath held in traction
taken hostage by the stars
a whole desert just for us
We led miniature riots in our
backyard
complete with wonder and the
notion
that we could dig our way to
China
dirt‐filled nostrils our shared
bathwater
was black as earth, two
grubby‐eyed kids
sharing the same soap
Brother, my little raven‐haired
dove
your bangs fell like crooked
curtains
around the brow of your face
forever a lippy pout, a puckered
old man’s question mark
You loved me then
not the way you
hate me now
and I always cried
when our father
hit you
but my hands
were just
as red as his
heart‐heavy
as any guilt
I cried when at the age of
nineteen
you smoked thirteen bowls of
hashish
proud you didn’t puke
smack went your newly
razor‐bladed baldness
against my sliding window,
the pane shattered and
your lazy left eye rolled too
crazy for me
as you limped away
I knew a part of you
was gone for good
sometimes you call
sometimes you won’t
often I push you
many times
I don’t
but when
you do
call
I hear those shattered
stars in your voice
and I know
the memory
of desert
has had
her salt‐rubbed way
with us
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