Earthquake Season

The mouse bounds along the bottom of the chain link fence: its paws and underside are light tan – its fur darkens along the spine, dark brown with long strands of charcoal gray. The mouse runs with its tail just above the ground – twice as long as its body – long, kinked pale flesh, like a human scar. He runs past the coke bottles and scrap metal, past the plywood and piles of sand and shells. The music of trucks idling and a faint Mexican ballad. A warm damp breeze curls in the orange ditch. The sparrows clinging to the top of the fence chatter and shake themselves in light rain. A grey tabby lies on its back, scratches its shoulders against the dirty sidewalk, its belly fur white, shining like a dull moon. The children inside the fence kneel in a circle on the long, dry grass, whispering and trading small red stars.

Pool

We sprawl, belly-down
next to the blue, frying.

Our pinkies touch, do not
touch. We are hipless,

titless, thin as the curled
rinds of tangerines littering

the stairs. Our pink-spangled
bikinis sag, loose as empty

burlap sacks. Our sun-whitened
hair spreads across the stones,

green as new corn, fragrant
as beach trash, as your mother's
stolen perfume.

Echo Park

The parking lot after
9 pm. The truck

pretending to be empty
on the front lawn.

The barred windows,
the small yellow walls,

the poodle-mix chained
to a hole. The black

barking, the florescent
buzz, the winged beetles,

flinging themselves
at the endless electric light.

Golden Gate Park


I have lost a glove. We lie
on the grass; it is cold but

not damp. A loud blue
bird hops behind your

head. Something small
with fur is watching us,

bright twitch. Singing
men with long beards

surround us, then step
into the redwoods.

It gets colder. Geese
appear and disappear

in the clouds. You hold
my hand between your

two hands and rub.
The light dims like a pink

hood covering our faces.
On a distant hill, a marvelous
fork tunes itself in the sun.