a summer dream of the barn-house on the corner lot of kern st. and utica alley
trees bend and wave, flowers remind me of running
through bushes with purple bunches, floral and lush until
the snap–a swing-set unmovable-cemented haphazardly
in the backyard with all its knobby trees and rotten leaves.
apple-core eyes are smokey and coiling under an invisible
chain-link fence for dogs, cutting the bandit’s neck staining
bare feet like crab-apples–ghostly presence in the long
shady patches of lawn… a black cat crosses a toe-headed boy.
he stretches his stubby fat fingers and yawns as a woodpile
splinters, sparks, and burns to the ground.
