Paul Vangelisti, p.4



EASTWIND

Sometimes you simply have to, of course,
since mommy is a horse and daddy isn’t.
Coming to lie under the old apple tree
with nobody else is just not enough
to reclaim nor the pencil thin moustaches
slouching and snickering on the corner of.
Simpler to mean something like who you are
a project, a cartoon in the classic
of two box tops plus fifty cents. Oh yeah,
and who forgot to chant for all the lucky
the dimpled progeny, the second house on the range,
the new car, the new spouse more stunning
than the perfect stranger along the boulevard
glancing over his shoulder. Enough
and you will just get up and grab a hose
and start watering. This morning I read
that a couple of hills over they were decrying
coyotes as ‘urban terrorists.’ O patience,
only child of hope and statisticians,
keep us in the still and deepening light
when the occasional hammer across the street
and the gurgle of the freshly purged fountain
and whatever at this age sends the heart aflutter
anticipating the seasonable heat of one more day.