Local View


In the sunlight over Seventh Avenue
a helicopter claws at the sky
as the afternoon drifts
toward the time the traffic slows for rush hour,
when the winter lawns along our street
take on a surreal shade of green,
planted as they were
to cheat the seasons
and the sprinklers haven’t been told
it rained last night. Wayward trucks
 
speed toward the wall
that never was programmed
into the digital maps
and turn and turn around
with their drivers having to resort
to human intuition
in finding the way to wherever
the way ought to lead, while the late

delivery van delivers
packages with too much packaging
and it’s no use telling the driver
about waste and more waste: it isn’t his
business. Neither are rising
temperatures and deforestation. It is late,
 
the foxes on the golf course
have the evening shadows by the tail.
 
 


 
A Change in the Weather
 
​
Thunder rolls across the wooden floor
of the living room at daybreak
and the windows flash
with unseasonal light.
                             The sun
is strangely absent
and the sky is a frightening
darkness at an early hour
when only the freeways are awake
with streets such as ours
                                  still turning
in their sleep, and the houses
shifting on their foundations.
                                       Now
it’s starting to rain in the bathroom
with the kitchen warming unaccountably
although the wind blows through
the portal where it forced
a door open
               while the ice
in the freezer is melting
but the day must go on
and the immigrants arrive
with their garden tools growling
ready to cut and cut
                           right down
to the eye of the storm.