california makes me nervous and
its not the palm trees or
the eucalyptus or
robert mitchum up at bishop
or mammoth lakes —
or the way a plymouth, a 38, grinds
to the bottom
of the rock strewn canyon
or tears through a guardrail
and falls to the sea —
but it feels like these
like maybe
i need a forty-one caliber pistol tucked in
my waistband.
like a night lit by stars that
turn the break white
or the casual bank of dull green
jets that circle and land and take flight.
–we’ve seen the space age fall
to dust.
we dont say
what we see —
we say
what will
not break the spell.
we say oh that’s fine and watch the sand flow —
we take a bird down to the beach and let the box go.
This article appears in To Redeem a Felon.