A late-night parking lot: The stir
of rain slants through subdued elms, shoaled
sodium lamplight, and a parked car
to the patched asphalt where roiled
water, assembled, pooled, and rilled,
wanders downstream, leaving a few
stray leaves behind on the windshield.
That’s how I miss you when you go.
Canyon: Baked rock. Cicadas chirr
and tick and stop. On sandstone paled
by sun, a lizard with a stare
pumps short push-ups over scald.
Safe? So. It skinks down, through crack-held
thorn-scrub, to hunt ants. In the now,
the age of glare-parched day is old.
That’s how I miss you when you go.
A busy downtown used bookstore/
café: A patio table, railed
off from the sidewalk, waits for scour-
ing by the bus-boy -- cups, congealed
dregs, the remains of pastry. Held
by a sweating glass, a tip flaps through
the breeze. The other tables are filled.
That’s how I miss you when you go.
Dearest, you wondered how I hold
up when, in the course of business, you
leave me with house empty and dulled.
That’s how. I miss you when you go.
of rain slants through subdued elms, shoaled
sodium lamplight, and a parked car
to the patched asphalt where roiled
water, assembled, pooled, and rilled,
wanders downstream, leaving a few
stray leaves behind on the windshield.
That’s how I miss you when you go.
Canyon: Baked rock. Cicadas chirr
and tick and stop. On sandstone paled
by sun, a lizard with a stare
pumps short push-ups over scald.
Safe? So. It skinks down, through crack-held
thorn-scrub, to hunt ants. In the now,
the age of glare-parched day is old.
That’s how I miss you when you go.
A busy downtown used bookstore/
café: A patio table, railed
off from the sidewalk, waits for scour-
ing by the bus-boy -- cups, congealed
dregs, the remains of pastry. Held
by a sweating glass, a tip flaps through
the breeze. The other tables are filled.
That’s how I miss you when you go.
Dearest, you wondered how I hold
up when, in the course of business, you
leave me with house empty and dulled.
That’s how. I miss you when you go.
—October 2002
---L.