Day 80 of #the100dayproject - Siuslaw River

 Siuslaw River

I glimpse a jellyfish

in the tidal river,

an outline, milky,

then it turns ethereal

like an eggwhite

without its sun 

to form a shape.

It's just water 

gathering its seams 

into a current of 

possibilities.

Day 79 of #the100dayproject - Poeming

Poeming

A poem moves through me like static,

lifts the fine hairs of my arms.

My pen and paper the conductor

draws out the electricity of myself

to spark and snap into words,

into shape, into a new kind of meaning.

Day 78 of #the100dayproject - Our Modern Era

Our Modern Era

Even then, on tippy toes,

They looked out to the world

all dressed up in finery.

Just like little girls now

looking out to the world

all dressed up in finery;

their light up sneakers

and streamers in their pigtails.

Their screams, shouts and laughs

Muffled by their pinkest masks;

their mouths trying to adapt

to this new kind of enclosure.

Day 77 of #the100dayproject - Penitence

Penitence

It’s true that I bought you cookies

only to eat them before you even

knew they existed.

And it’s true that I carry guilt

bigger than the moon for all of the things

I have not done or have not said.

I tally them up, notches in my heart.

It’s true that I hold each one close to me

as if nursing an injured limb or

as if each transgression is a new organ

growing deeper into me, changing

the landscape of my body. 

But when you cup my cheek 

with your hand, 

when we wake to sunlight 

slanting on our pillows, I feel

the warmth of you, and I try

to mistake this for forgiveness.

Day 76 of #the100dayproject - Praise

Praise

I praise your tired palms

the underbelly of your joints.

I praise the curls of your hair

their tangles like a black crown.

I praise your chest where I rest

my head to feel your heartbeat

against my cheek. I praise your

belly where all the sounds of you,

that constant labor, the beautiful shape 

over and around the smoothness of you.

I praise you with my body, my hands

idolizing the rituals of your limbs,

the slopes of your neck. I praise you

with my lips, each kiss a type of incense

the gentle touch of smoke and prayer.

I praise you with my ears, the sounds of

your voice erupting in laughter and ecstasy.

I praise you as you move through this world,

I praise you as a dream alive. I watch you 

with my eyes, your golden form. How you are mine,

how I am yours is the serendipity of life.

Day 75 of #the100dayproject - Memoriam

For day 75, I have submitted my poem titled Memoriam to Rattle's July 2020 Ekphrastic challenge. This month's picture inspired me to write more. 

Day 74 of #the100dayproject - The Game

The Game

I show him fir cones,

but the cones are too small.

I show him moss

and he stomps through it.

I show him mushrooms

under a pine tree;

He shrugs his shoulders

and plays with his toy gun,

carved out of cedar and pine.

He pulls back the rubber band,

squints his eye, lines up

his target, the soft

underbelly of a redwood;

it hardly has a chance.

The band snaps,

a trajectory of conquest;

a tree, in a little boy’s eyes,

is the shape of defeat.

Day 73 of #the100dayproject - Even at Five Years Old

I'm behind in posts, but I have been writing in my notebook many poems. I haven't had a lot of access of internet connection. We took a family trip to Glacier Natl Park and Yellowstone. Now Ashish and I are in Olympic Natl Park. We parked our travel trailer on the beach and are enjoying life.

Even at Five Years Old

And when he discovered

grass with its tassels ripe

with seed, he also discovered

conquest, grasping the stalk

with his small hands, pulling

until the stem separated

from the whole plant.

Then he raised it above him

Like the flag of a conquistador

or a sword used to weaponize

discovery as if land could be

discovered, claimed, and owned.

And that long stem of grass

an extension of his arm.

And in that moment, he knew

what it was like to destroy

and show off his handiwork;

the fruit of his pillage.

To everyone, he thrust

his trophy into our faces,

“It’s mine. All mine.”

Day 72 of #the100dayproject - Wild Thoughts

Wild Thoughts

Wind kicked a can through the gas station parking lot

into my path, onto my foot, and I thought it might

have coronavirus on its flattened aluminum and

that is how my days spiral, into flaccid thoughts

of pandemics and wind carrying coughs and

sneezes into the cruxes of my nasal passages.

Where will we go from here except further

down the abyss of fear? That a soda can

turns into a vector to destroy nations?

Day 71 of #the100dayproject - Michigan

This is an image during the coronavirus pandemic that has stuck with me for some time now. I can't get it out of my head, these men posing for the camera as the sieged the Michigan State capitol building, protesting the stay at home orders.

Michigan

The checkered floor of the capitol

with checkered men, wide stances,

mouths covered in homemade masks.

Assault is not the word to use but rifle

and conceal and carry. Their second

amendment right to bring their bodies

full of violence and red plaid into

this building and pose for this camera

as if they could claim this earth

theirs with the power vested

in their AK-47s and AR-15s.

Day 70 of #the100dayproject - Obit

Obit

They raised themselves from adult to old,

schooled their grandchildren in the art

of sitting in a chair and watching the world

pass them by, showed those children how to

fiddle with their hands like playing with time.

All that gray hair on their head a countdown,

just another way of saying settled and

content in every language except death

and obituaries. They lived and they died.

Their bodies summed up in the column

space of the local newspaper in past

tense, only read by those closest to death.

Day 69 of #the100dayproject - Night Shade

Night Shade

Morning glories fold their trumpets,

white petals like moon sticks at dusk.

My feet tired of the longest days;

they want to close themselves

onto cool tile and perch atop

a pile of pillows, rest in the night

as the stars unfurl their light,

illuminating plants in the garden

creating night shade beneath

vine and tree, dark within darkness.

My body has spaces where even

the brightest light cannot shine,

yet petals open there 

when I fold my eyes.

Day 68 of #the100dayproject - At Dusk

At Dusk

Barfoot and the sun slows into gold;

the cottonwood tufts and dandelion

seeds turn into specs of shimmer.

The miners and panhandlers never

needed to rush to California or

to the vast Yukon. All the gold is here,

glowing on this slope in the foothills

of the Cascades. Their hands rough

from their labor, their faces lined

with worry; here, the only labor

is to watch barefoot in the dry

summer grass and wait for the sun

to slant and tilt the earth into

precious metal. They would

scramble then, arms reaching

upward for their fortunes

like the vines of the

blackberry brambles lusting

for the last piece of sunlight.

Day 67 of #the100dayproject - Love

Love

Your head in my lap,

black curls a ripple

of blackberries

in a big silver bowl

ripe with your musk

of citrus and cumin.

Your eyes are moonless,

starless, the deepest

night except the reflection

of me looking at you

and we are mirrors.

I do not need

to journey across

the world to find

myself. I am here

in your orbit and

you in mine, both of us

circling each other

as if both of us are a sun,

a guiding star.

Day 66 of #the100dayproject - The Pain of Being

The Pain of Being

I need to know the earth will stay green

All of us worshippers of sunlight, wind, and rain;

our bodies wild, untamed, desperate for being.

Bears lumber through yards thin and lean,

gnash their winter teeth to lessen their pain.

I need to know the earth will stay green.

The kittens under the shed cry and keen.

Their mother left. Her fur bitter, eyes insane.

Our bodes wild, untamed, desperate for being

like the squirrels that scuffle up the trees,

their hunger drowned by the roar of an airplane.

I need to know the earth will stay green

that the rivers will never lose their gleam

and the mountains will never wax or wane.

Our bodies wild, untamed desperate for being,

tongues outstretched to taste the ocean’s aquamarine

and smell the wet musk of loam and terrain.

I need to know the earth will stay green

with our bodies wild, untamed desperate for being.

Day 65 of #the100dayproject - Existentialist

Existentialist

Anger is the taste of coffee without

sugar or milk to sweeten it up.

I want a little bitterness in my body;

the taste of caffeine straight up,

keep me lucid for argument’s sake.

I want the edge in my voice to stay

awhile, put up its tired feet and sip

that dark black brew. I want to flex

and sharpen my claws; a window

is a window is a window into my soul;

window being a different kind of

mirror to see the person reflected

behind me to view into them, reaching

for the blunt object to rid me

from this earth. Or it is me reflected

back. It couldn’t be me. It couldn’t

be my eyes or mouth curled in violence.

And yet, it is. I can hardly recognize myself;

my form like iodine in a clear glass of water,

the stain of coffee on a white carpet,

I have become the streak of bitter glass.

Day 64 of #the100dayproject - California Poppy

California Poppy

Wind

of semi-trucks, traffic and concrete,

bitumen, litter, shredded tires. Leavings.

Detritus.

Homeless objects lost in our creations,

our architecture of efficiency. Then, there.

Look.

The poppy, at home in the soulless

spaces, roots digging into every corner,

groove,

and crack. Living on the shoulders

of overpasses, freeways, or between

slabs

of sidewalks, roads, and medians.

Subsisting on the smallest speck of dirt,

oracles

              of life beneath our crumbling

structures, our failed attempts to build

better

              than what the earth provides. All

these orange flowers shaking stems and

petals

              as if they are bodies in trance

divining the language of the earth,

conduits,

              as the planet cradle us,

and continues to give and give and

give.

Day 63 of #the100dayproject - Constant Companion

Constant Companion

I am married to the ache of my body,

tuned like a musical instrument

That must be plucked and played.

Pain my life long companion,

growing old together towards

a horizon that, naturally, ends in death.

Day 62 of #the100dayproject - Progeny

Progeny

Children rip tears in the fabric of the earth

creating roads and tunnels of futures

more terrible than the last.

Day 61 of #the100dayproject - Grace

Grace

Stripes on spider legs, how beautiful they

must be to spiders. How long and lovely,

agile, like thin boned fingers threading

a needle. The embodiment of grace,

walking on walls, ceilings, and water,

dangling from every surface.

Skittering across kitchen floors like

ballet dancers rushing on and off stage

to form a union of organized flurry.

Such design to give so many eyes

to view the world, to give the will

to weave string into webs, the work

to capture mammal dreams to ponder

like reading tomes of books, something

to be watched and observed, if not less

than, at the very least, equals on this earth.

Day 55 through 60 of #the100dayproject

Hello!

Days 50 through 55 were spend on revision between May 26th and June 1st and days 55 through 60 were spent also on revising my poem Racism 2.0. Because of the murder of George Floyd, I decided to stop posting for sometime and give social media a break from writing and instead be more active on the protests on Twitter and to work on writing in my journal about my own privilege and grapple with my own ignorant behavior and racism. If we want to see change in this world, we can only look towards ourselves and see our own problems as something that can be changed, evolved. I am not a bad person, no. Can I improve and learn so I can be better? Yes. The last couple of weeks have been meant to take a breath, read, listen, and oftentimes, cry. I am picking up where I left off at day 61 which should have been on 6/7/2020, but my Day 61 is now 6/15/202. This means I will not complete my 100 day project until 7/25/2020. I'm glad I took this time to sit back and listen. It doesn't mean I didn't write everyday, but I wrote with no intention to make poetry. I wrote with the intention to evolve.

Day 50 through 55 of #the100dayproject

Hello all!

I've been working hard on many revisions and then submitting them to a couple call for submissions and contests. As I wrote in my last post, I am using days 50 through 60 to take time and revise poems everyday that are either from the last 50 days of #the100dayproject or older poems that I have been working on. So far I was able to submit a group of poems to Granta by the 26th; I submitted my trio of poems "Eating Practices". Also, I just submitted to the International Bridport Prize in poetry. I submitted "Manifest Destiny, East" & "Aperture" to the Bridport Prize.

Back on 4/15, I submitted to the Ohio Review's poetry contest and will be waiting to hear back from them still for sometime. Around the same time, I submitted to the Kay Snow Poetry Contest held through Willamette Writers.

The oldest submission I'm waiting on is from Rattle Magazine. I expect a long wait from Rattle, well, because they're Rattle...I submitted "Janitoress" back on 1/25/2020 and I am still waiting to hear back from them.

From day 55 through 60, I will continue my path of revision and then begin writing a poem a day starting day 61.

Day 48 & 49 #the100dayproject - Revisions - Eating Practices

Hello all! I've been taking the last two days to revise a series of three poems called Eating Practices in time for my first submittal to Granta. It's a long shot, but wish me luck. I will be looking for other journals and lit mags for my poem trio and my friend and fellow poet Kathy S. is also on the look out.

Day 50 through 60 will be focused on revision for pems that I have previously written. Revision is more than one aspect of the writing practice. A poem rarely is written perfectly. 99.9% of the time, poems take years to revise. Poetry is a artistic form that is dependent on time. Poems written 5 years, 10, years, 20 years ago finally make sense or come together based off of what we, as poets, experience.

Poems change with us. Only when they are ready, will they reveal themselves to us.

Eating practices has been more than a year in the making and has finally come together. Even with this first submission, it is possible that I will review the poems again and again and find new meanings and new ways to convey what I'm trying to say. Until then, I will be brave and send them out into the world.

Day 47 of #the100dayproject - Gatherings

Gatherings

Even in the heat of summer,

With its abundance of sunshine

promise of flowers and fruit,

the squirrels still gather

Their food into themselves

As if winter were a close

Companion, waiting behind

The evergreens, the essence

Left deep in the squirrel’s nests.

The grip of it so tight on them

That they would eat themselves

Dead, rather that feel the bite

Of the tundra or the emptiness

of a body without the warmth of food.

Day 46 of #the100dayproject - Ritual

Ritual

And so he prays behind me,

Completely bare, naked,

In his purest form

A statue of vulnerability.

His skin itself a prayer

His body the body of god.

Elevated by the vermillion

And the nutmeg nuts

Painted with grains of rice.

Each one of them a planet

Orbiting his body, his nakedness

The center of a humble husk

Of bone and blood, his hair

Curling outward, a universe

In each inky strand.

Day 45 of #the100dayproject - Sight

Sight 

The scent of flowers would hold a soft tone,

A music, a humming that captures color

Behind my eyelids.

Even when I am blind,

The world will be visible in flashes of light,

An aura that is beyond sight, only seen

When I close my eyes.

Day 44 of #the100dayproject - Shame, Shame

Shame, Shame

The weather is titanium, clouds unbreakable,

the tops of the evergreens cannot puncture through

the day’s armor. The monotony of sleep and breath,

building up like the scales of soap scum on

the brushed nickel faucet. Everything can be made

into a guise of protection. My words can move around

you as if to keep you safe, but they are the horse

outside of Troy, a mane made of driftwood and nails.

I am not what I say, I am what is inside, a sword

that hungers for so much undoing.

Day 43 of #the100dayproject - Old Flames

Old Flames

I am wheat leaning with the wind, the untouched earth, waiting to be opened like a zipper.

Root and burrow, the tunnels and network maps of creatures inside of me.

My scent like the big sky, tastes a cold glass of water;

I am all of these things. I never had old flames

that fanned out to torch the prairies of my body, scar me burnt or sad.

I want only one man to wonder my vast spaces and move through

my endless fields, his hands touching each tassel of grass

gentle, coaxing as if to draw me out and tame my infinite fervor,

to quench my wild thirst.

Day 42 of #the100dayproject - Moon as Aged Cheese

Moon as Aged Cheese

The moon is milk curdled with a couple

drops of lemon. It once sprawled

like the milky way; a spilled bucket

of milk across the sky. A squirt of citrus

brought it together into the shape

of a curdled globe, a head of cheese.

I raise it out of the vast vat

of space, that black ink brine

of salt and meteorite. I take a bite

from it, ripe with gravity. The mass of its

flavor, floral, ribboned with silver mold,

bitter, creamy. I will pair it with andromeda

in my stemmed wine glass, swirl the galaxy

and sip its aroma, the taste of black holes and

rolling the fragrance of deepest space, silence

casked and barreled, the universe a cellar,

cool and damp, storing away the flavors

of earth, planet, and shooting star.

Day 41 of #the100dayproject - Internal Labor

Internal Labor

I am a stethoscope of hearing,

My ear curved internally to listen

To the sound of my neck muscles

Stretching, relaxing, creaking

Like the sound of evergreens

As the wind sends them listing

Against themselves. I can hear

The sound of ear wax as it cracks

And pops, the pressure like

A release of a soda can tab,

Suction and bubbles, or plastic

Packaging, taking a whole mass

Of it in hand and wringing

Until every cell bursts at once.

All the sounds move to the rhythm

Of my blood, pulsing. My heart

Beat overshadows any other sound,

Even the engulfing wave of vibration

From my throat swallowing, the ripple

Effect of my vertebrae clicking

In my neck. My internal motions

How red and endearing, to listen

To my body glisten through its

Daily work, expanding and contracting

Itself in a routine of janitorial work

The cleaning and healing,

The endless hours of upkeep.

Day 40 of #the100dayproject - When I Take Another Form

When I Take Another Form

I am baking in my kitchen,

the heat from the oven pinching

my face into a sourdough loaf.

This day is a type of lynching

where the hot element glows,

a brand that can alter my skin.

Written words are too much

some ingredients are missing

inside of me, inside this body.

I am comprised of fiction

and if proofed and baked

I will turn to stone,

my heart encased

in my body’s prison.

Day 39 of #the100dayproject - Matunuck Beach

Matunuck Beach

Any time I walk towards the ocean

I feel the sand buff and

peel away the layers

of my armor. I want to be raw

from the salt in my wounds

taste the grit in my teeth.

When I lay myself down onto

the beach, my body is a letter

written to the ocean, tucked away

into an envelope of sand,

stamped by a beach towel,

addressed to the tide, sea foam

and conical shells that house

a body of a creature, not unlike myself.

Day 38 of #the100dayproject - Road Work

Road Work

They ripped up the road, but the road was still good.

A long crack had formed a fissure where small tufts

Of grass rooted themselves between the asphalt.

The steel grates, rusted well, held up to every foot,

Tire and storm. The water drains painted sky blue,

The paint peeled and chipping. It grew cracks,

Just like my eyes started to show lines like start bursts.

A sign of experience, the middling age, hints of pain

And gray come subtle, but can still be hidden

as if old age can be tucked away, dyed, stuffed

in a drawer, forgotten until an earthquake sections

a road like how a surgeon cracks open a sternum.

It’s better to bare a white flag of surrender,

Relieve ourselves of our weapons and useless armor.

Day 37 of #the100dayproject - Spring

Spring

The diaphanous lives of plant

and tree, their desires,

their pleasures, mysteries.

Rose, lilac, magnolia, cherry;

they mingle with one another

their cocktails of pollen,

fibers and molecules of sex,

genitalia and fragrance.

Of course it’s all a dance,

a language; the wind

a carriage to give them

speech. Attempt

to reach out, touch

one another, entangle

their branches and bodies

as if they could lift

themselves and be free.

Day 36 of #the100dayproject - Hive

Hive

A paper brown bag stuck in the branches of a tree

                                                                                      Or

Old bark curling off into muslin pearls

                                                                        Maybe

Dead leaves gathered into a bunch, stuck

                             In the intersection of trunk and branch

Instead

The fine walled architecture of a wasp’s nest

                             Blending in with the bark of the tree

The wasp, with its segmented head, drank

                                           From puddles and mud,

Spit its nest into a thin form, paper clay

                             Such craft from its mouth

The entrance to the hive like a gaping hole

                                                            O, surprised

                                                            O, humming

                                                            O, screaming

O, mouth that licks the hole, the buzz, tongue and mandible,

O, chews the meat of the earth, carnivorous

                                                                       

Day 35 of #the100dayproject - A Poetry Reading

For my day 35, I was working on reading three of my poems for a video. I uploaded this as a request from The Heartland Review to share with their poetry community. "Black Hills Gold" won first place of the 2020 Joy Bale Boone Poetry Prize and "Portrait in Gray" was a finalist.

Day 34 of #the100dayproject - Just a Thought

Just a Thought

I want to be forgiven

For the parts of me

That continue to unspool

And fray. I want to be

Forgiven for the raggedness

Of my edges, the imperfections.

Sometimes I want to be

Forgiven for being me.

But I sometimes want

To be the one forgiving;

I’m not the only one

That is on this earth

struggling to find my way.

Day 33 of #the100dayproject - Skykomish

Skykomish

The snowmelt river

Submerged boulders,

Funneled into

The depths of the

River bed. White

Is the color of its

Rage and what

Else can I do

But attempt to ride

Its anger, kayak through

Its emotions,

Move along its surface

Like and oak leaf,

And break through

Its rapid heartbeat,

Deposited in the smooth

Glass of its calm waters.

Day 32 of #the100dayproject - Antiquity

Antiquity

a person thins to a point

where even their bones

move beneath the flesh,

strange animals, dolphins

and monsters under

the ocean of skin until

the person winnows away

and all that is left are

the animals picked clean,

butterfly and fish, beautiful

collections, the museums

hidden within us.

Day 31 of #the100dayproject - Silhouette

Silhouette

a crow lands outside my window,

insect in its beak, swallows and parts

the morning with its caw, caw, caw.

a crow never wants to be a rooster.

a crow is what it is, it never dreams

of anything else. all of our striving

we are hungry for the carrion

of our bodies, to bring us closer

to our untimely death, and the crow

will be there, not to wake us like

a rooster, but to crow as a crow crows,

to warn that worms will bite,

that even the flies will sting.

a crow knows what we taste like

without pecking our bones clean;

we taste like a grub, those cut-worms

that burrow into squash roots then

shed their old body into a new body

leaving the remains mixed in the earth.

a crow knows the smell of us

when we are close to that border,

the in between when we are

no longer a body, but not yet its food,

but when we are moving from human

to ylem, our atoms shifting into

our next phase.

Day 29 of #the100dayproject - Phase 4: We Are Not Ready

For the past four days, I've been writing a series of poems based off of a Washington state #covid-19 policy that was flowed out by Governor Inslee. He wants to use a four phase approach to reopening Washington which he outlines here. I used that PDF as a prompt, trying to visualize how reopening will look, how it will feel. All the while, I feel the tension in the air. How can this plan work when so many people, so many states are disregarding the gravity of this #pandemic ?

Phase 4: We Are Not Ready

I sit in an auditorium, sounds amplified,

the building shell-like, the shape of an echo.

People file in, sit with friends and family,

a cacophony of conversations, each person

wants to be heard. There are no distances

between us.

Again, I am the fish tucked

and laid neat into a can.

Again, I ride the bus,

and stand in a cramped elevator.

Again,

the awkward silences and squeezed lines

outside of coffee shops. We are many

and each one of us a host, a vector.

No one will forget this time, when we stood

apart, our lips and nose covered up until

none of us could decipher what part

of us is human. It is the purpose of a virus

to move into and through us, change us,

like how a river carves its signature into land

with canyon, gorge, marsh and delta.

So too the virus has embellished us

with its marker, and yet, we don’t know

if it is indelible or not.

Day 28 of #the100dayproject - Phase 3: Gather in Numbers

Phase 3: Gather in Numbers

It's been so long since we saw

each one of our faces, our faces,

not the pixilated RBG version

of our faces. I have spoken

with your simulacra for hours,

listened to the garbled sounds

of you through laptop speakers.

I’ve looked at your face as a flat

screen, your picture in picture,

only to realize the camera lens

is you, not the picture of you.

I could not look you in the eye,

nut now, here you are, a body

moving through the world.

At one point in the distancing,

I believed that you stopped

being real, I imagined everyone

else was not real; quarantine

became the truth. Now I can touch

your hand, hug you close to me.

The atoms of your body comprise

you of you. Atoms are like pixels

and my body is made of atoms;

I think I am what I am, and you are

what you are. Even the stars

are like millions of pixels;

the night sky a screen lightening

as if the stars, too, must shelter in place.

Day 27 of #the100dayproject - Phase 2: The Eyes See New

Phase 2: The Eyes See New

I move my magical thinking outside

The container of my body, into

The open air for all to witness

This collection of treasures. Ideas

Can become so powerful they

Solidify like water into ice, transform

Their intangible selves into objects.

So too does the idea of us sleeping

Outside, our bodies content with

our sleeping bags, the sky as our tent.

So too does the idea of setting camp,

The methods of pitching and staking,

The wrangling of poles and herding

Of waterproof canvas. So too does

The idea of building a fire with

Newspaper, kindling and branches,

Creating the orange throated roar.

So too does the idea of placing

Our chairs, popping the tab

Of a beer and warming

Our feet close to the fire pit.

So too does the idea of

Our conversations over

Campfire, how our voices

Wonder and weave through

The night as if our language

Grew legs and moved through

The dark. So too does the idea

Of being outside, so too does

The idea of being; the fear

Lifting as if the fire could burn

the virus, turn it to coal and ash;

we could use the light of the fire

to guide us to the next parts

of our collective turmoil.

Day 26 of #the100dayproject - Phase 1: The Slow Reopening

Phase 1: The Slow Reopening

Stay with the couches and carpets,

The wood floors and vinyl. A home

Is a home to stay at home. Brick

And mortar, we all have time

To lay on our floors and look up

At the ceiling as if we are laying

In grass, looking at sky and cloud.

We have the time to memorize

The shapes we find in the popcorn

Ceilings, find the images of our desires.

Then we go upstairs and memorize

Every creak and sigh of the steps.

Through our bedroom windows,

We view the street below, a scenic

Display of asphalt, concrete, trimmed

Lawns, and the parallel line of cars

Each one of them parked, not a single

Space open. All of us going nowhere

Fast.