Somewhere, someone watches a Mexican woman,
too big for her jet-tight poly-rayon dress,
gyrate against a lamppost,
though no one else in the barrio
seems to notice. Here, deer periodically
punctuate the brush behind the house,
and occasionally go too far in their flamboyant
voyages, so that sometimes from the redwood
deck I see the wet nose of a whitetail,
generally a baby, poking through a gap
made by a sapling. How gay. Joyous.
How gravely deprave. A Labrador goes berserk
one block down. He hears but he
cannot shake loose. From where I sit, I am pope.
The dogs bark up at the moon. The Mexican
woman jiggles, gasoline rainbow in a black puddle.
The deer eat the tomatoes. Crickets make
speakers of the sycamores. Neighbors
unplug their lemon-string lights. A car
drives by, thumping bass. I drain my
Ranger. Love at the Bottom of the Sea
Ends.
Photo By: Dave Owen