"October 30-- the Dow is Closed."
"My daughter tugs my pant leg, takes my hand,
walks me around the house--
living room, kitchen, leaf clung.
We vine down the bedroom hall, morning glory, blue flower,
in the midst of drought.
In the season of protest parks, I
come across a photograph of a cop swinging his baton,
his badge easy to read.
The caption includes his name, address, phone number, email.
In the comment box, someone's going to order 20 "nasty-ass
pizzas" to his house.
Someone's going to get his social security number,
cut his electricity, blow his fucking head off.
We are already naked, Steve Jobs tells us on Facebook,
and Steve Jobs is dead.
Things fall away.
Remember the little bomb with the error message
in the face of death?
It's easy to hate the part that swings a baton, hard to know
how far we'll get.
This early, this late season, my daughter
takes her first steps towards the window,
with a view to the drought park.
Red, I want to show her, because the park is gray green.
But all I can conjure is a blood blister on my finger.
My ladybug, in this mess of October, leaves don't change--
they fall.
Grass grows, paper bag beige.
Three hours south of us, people take to the streets
to meet the rain."