My Father-in-Law’s Coin Purse
Fish-shaped, dark brown,
A leather pouch I carry, the music of coins
When I step, a whole jamboree
When I’m running—and I’m running now.
Parking enforcement is ticketing my truck.
Forty-five dollars, with a courtesy envelope for free.
I’m mad, then not mad.
I picture my father-in-law in 1956,
The year I planted beans on the side of our house.
I imagine how he opened his coin purse
For his daughter, my future wife,
Spoiled her with Hawaiian “shave” ice.
At his death,
Just one coin rattled in the purse—
My father-in-law, a frugal farmer,
Figured his income down to the penny.
Ars Poetica, or an Encounter in Fresno’s Chinatown
This five-minute friend
Told me about his dog,
Three legs working,
One eye blue, the other regular
And a Mexican bar, now gone,
How the owner set empties near the back,
Free swallows under the moon . . .
His yodeling story went on,
Then stopped. Said he had to take a leak
And that he would be back
In a second. He went around
A building. I waited
Staring upward at a kite stabbed to death
By the branches of an old sycamore.
Time hammered the minutes to dust.
This bundle of walking rags,
Where was he? How long did it take
To empty a bladder?
I looked around the building
And saw a puddle
The size of a manly shoeprint,
Then a second puddle,
A third. Had to wonder,
If he was spraying his scent
A puddle here,
A puddle there,
This troubadour of a lost cause.
Every time I see an empty
Bottle or buckled can,
I think of that man.
He said he would be back
In a second. That was thirty
Years ago. Wind has a way
Of evaporating our pissy steps.
Trees
From the roots up, trees expect everything.
Sunlight, for instance, wind on Monday,
Rain on Tuesday. Bird nests. Leaf smoke
Through the branches, shadows
That climb by the hour,
Broken kites, frisbee and shuttlecock,
Cats sometimes, squirrels often,
And on Saturday teenagers
Under the canopy of leaves.
Kisses, words, gum-scented laughter.
After they leave
An old man in a sweater,
Buttons in the wrong holes.
Rake and a trash can,
And what’s this he’s whistling?
“She’ll be coming around the mountain”?
That already happened.
The tree
Can stretch only so high,
Before it begins to lean,
Before a chainsaw is brought from the shed,
Logs in the hearth—
Scent of smoke, light in the old guy’s wet eyes,
Warmth, the memory of warmth.
Love did come flying around the mountain,
All her life fixing your buttons,
Before she lifted skyward,
One beautiful leaf in the momentary wind.
