A boy sits on the curb
A boy sits on the curb
in the heat that is slowly settling out with the day
released by the evening sky
like mud stirred in streams while catching pollywogs.
The pores of the trees are opening, breathing out
a long cool sigh, inhabited by the boy, who sits unthinking.
The boy is waiting for something, a motorcycle or a dog,
to go past and smile—
he pulls his knees close to his chest
as the linden over him withholds what it has seen.
The magpies dip across the street, graceful,
looking for nestlings to eat.
That morning the boy mistook
a stranger for his mother;
panicked but holding back the tears
He finally found her
extracting a package of ground beef
the points of her heels keeping her feet away from the floor.
Now on the hearth of thoroughfare
the heated pavement shimmers.
With his house behind him
he listens to the treefrogs who still sing for one another.
