Poems 1
I hear thunder
I go out
to the porch
the first
drops of rain
cut the air
beat on the roof
a gust of wind
and a screen door
slams shut
rain blackened
elms twist
on a street
from my childhood
me and Luciano
are squatting
side by side
on the curb
after a storm
we launch twigs
and paper boats
in the run-off
there’s a bird’s nest
on the sidewalk
all this debris
shaken loose
in my head
the last time
I saw that street
I parked
with
out of state plates
in front
of my grandfather’s house
and sat again
on the curb
and a face
I could not see
watched me
from the shadows
of an upstairs
window
I saw the hand
pull back
the curtain
and I remembered
the day we left
in 1961
how I gazed out
from that same window
a boy of three
as my dad
and his cousin
loaded up
the moving van
that would
take us
to our new house
my rocking horse
in the middle
of the empty floor
and all the life
that waited
on the other side
of the glass
