Only some remorse about this





Waking up in Wisconsin


Waking up in Wisconsin
Forgetting my California
In the empty interior of Midwest:
The West fades like old films
I’ve acted in.  Memory sets
Like a sun over lowlands

I hear the Spanish name of…
Front page of the Travel section
Color photographs of homeland
Seven nights going here or there
A cruise along where my dog and I…
Where my first…  the time that…

Pacific Coast Highway in the rain
Vigilant for boulders, mudslides
March grey whales aiming north
Taking cover in the quaking
Staying inside as sun burns up
The hills.  The Santa Ana winds

Smells of sagebrush when waves
Crash, Madonna and I on the cliffs
Ten minutes from Disneyland
Turning on the hose in the spa
For the hot and brrrr of cold
Unaware what a deal I had got

Five months of cold today
Cannot be turned off at the tap
A whole past, California, gone
Into state of mind, selective
Pans of scenery, actors, booms
Skies painted with brushfires

On the prairie, the sun appears
Wide, hot, but it is not
In dim winter, when winds
Howl stiff as lake ice
Across the plains, swapping
Once-upon-a for the distance