literophanes.com

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~

mind of mine

born in another

were this possible

would this poem be different

~

forgetting where I walk

not remembering your name

my million lapses in synapses

as unreliable as knowing where falling leaves land

would you be tinted in the same crimson colors

~

the same childhood fears

memories matured with time

dreams intact

words as natural

science as mysterious

layers of soil covering archeological artifacts

would you find the same

~

privilege re-matched to a skin

social circles redrawn in ovals

a home on a hill

where I see my former self without knowing him

would life be so different

~

though I can never know the possibility

my mind rests under a late afternoon sky

consciousness drifts into chaparral, into dry soil

beheaded with the thought of elsewhere

another plane

through another’s eyes

~

then red sun

I think to myself:

were this poem spoken

in other words

would it too end here

~

~

Santa Anas when you blow

across the Southern California landscape

in January

you clear the air of particulates

that no longer matter:

pollutants,

dry earth,

and dead skin cells alike.

~

When I wake before sunrise

I see the branches on the Ficus benjamina outside my window

shake like a dog right out of water.

Your wind burrows through the thin rafters of my flat

as if to say I can shake you better than the earthquakes do.

The bright mid-morning sky is deeper, bluer.

It still is winter after all.

My mind clears.

I smile to the car next to me on the freeway.

Until now I forgot what it’s like to look someone in the eye.

The mountain ranges to the East are closer today.

They look me in the eye waiting for my thank you,

my appreciation for the way they compress the cold winds from the North

into a warm desert oscillation that brings wind farms to life.

~

By afternoon

you fold across the region;

your arms and legs flatten

like an ingenue reading her script

on a floating chaise longue

in a pool

in the Hills.

When the Fahrenheit peaks,

your tongue laps the smoke plume above the Angeles.

The smell permeates my open, thirsty pores.

People rear their heads to the sky like deer during hunting season;

urbanites revert to native instincts.

Our proofs of progress

are almost trivial today.

~

As the sun sets

and red hot irons

spread beyond Catalina,

weaves of hot and cold air

interlace along the coast.

The darkening San Bernardino Mountains retreat

taking the freeways with them.

It’s a confusing winter evening

of shedding layers.

I should

be cold

in

my t-shirt

shouldn’t I?

~

When another molt

is complete

and winds calm,

a fresh skyline glows

beyond the silhouettes of palm trees

in a new skin.

~