on the matter of the tree

we were writing the movie
again, but we needed a new scene
so out of the heavens came a storm
of intense perescription pounding on the trailor
top twenty skateboarders doin wheelies n he
popped
off the couch, shouting the windows! the windows
she and i looked at each other laughing she said
let him handle it
the trunk is open and everything! so she jumps up, heads
out the door i'm almost fifty i mumble
i don't need to be heading out in the rain i'll just go
get some towels so they can dry off it's like

a firehose drenching out there, but he comes in with his shirt off
and she said he already had it done, and the rain keeps
pouring out of the sky like some cloud's getting rid of the six pack
he drank at the inlaw's so she says baby
it looks like we'll be sitting here a while and i say you know
how it is in florida. so we watch the water for while
listen to it embracing the square sides
and sloping roof funneling
straight down
drowning sound like
the pool dived into you

then just


taper



off.

he says if your camera's out there you might wanna check it
cuz the water was coming straight in sideways. i walk
out the ground's wet
but nothing in the sky. i say man,
that's one hell of a way for someone
to tell you to close your doors.




($)










in the flower bed next to the broken screen back door
one of those small juniper trees in a bucket appeared. it matches
the way the snowman got on the patio. on xmas eve
i brought it in and decorated it. now i guess i need to keep
it alive for next year. i dunno what to do with the snowman.











*******









next to the bejeweled tree she tells me how you
gotta love yourself before you can love
anyone else. self esteem in the land of the gladiators.
i take pictures with flash and without. some of them
look like the real thing but mostly
they seem dispossessed, like patience
without reward. a pink bell wearing
gold filligree underscored with a' red
lamp fuzzes the light like the times i was
beautiful, for a little while, with you.