I'm just going to read three more.
This poem I wrote while watching these kids jump on their roller
skates out front of my house and outside of San Francisco.
Summer refrain-- "The Sidewalk."
Some neighborhood kids have angled wide board
against cinder block to ramp up their roller blades
and have begun to record the breadth of their bravery
with red, green, white chalk slashes--
two boys and a girl.
She out jumps her counterparts each time.
And each time, they grudgingly lay her green stripe down
past the row and come faster to the ramp.
Thrill of gravity defied for however many seconds--
the muscle clench and wince of pleasure.
They can see in her brown eyes that she won't decide if she
will let either of them win.
They're 11-- maybe 12.
And before summer is out, she will kiss both these boys.
And how they've begun to admire her longer, more graceful leaps
of faith in her own body.
How they look like they never look away
when she shakes out black hair from under her helmet.
How they've suddenly fathomed a want deeper
than any wrapped birthday.
And they see it in each other and hate each other for it.
And like this, they learn to conspire.
And while they lie in their beds in houses next door
to one another, they both rise in the unhappy dark ripe
with orange blossom and gaze across the street, confused
and never before so alone.
Alejandra, Alejandra-- each time sweeter and less
forgiven across their lips.
And she skates through their sun dried dreams.
Alejandra, Alejandra-- and they know vacation
will come for them both.
And they are more aware than ever of those delineated days--
June, July.
Joe knows Tony will leave for a week south
to visit his sunny grandmother.
Tony knows Joe has to go to Silver City
as soon as he returns.
Like this, they become sullen, absorbed
in the delirious glue of model cars, the binary graphics that
entangle their hours--
Alejandra, Alejandra
While Tony is away, Joe kisses Alejandra
in the dusk, popsicles melting in their hands, sidewalk
spotted sticky and skates still on their feet.
Tony brings Alejandra back a present--
Shamu snow globe.
Toni kisses Alejandra beside the pond in the park,
while koi look on, murmuring their algae secrets.
And Alejandra leaves to visit her abuelos.
Then the boys sit together again on the silent steps
of the hilltop market, watching the last days of August sink
in the miserable sky, cherry popsicles, blazing fish.
Alejandra, Alejandra-- abject in their mouths."