by Helen Spica
To look at all the
concrete, dead grass,
pallet wood,
you would think the girls
and boys who have only now
discovered their shape and hunger
here, would do it,
get pregnant, do it again,
go see a movie,
drink—there is always drinking—
having nothing
of their own but the hum
of convenience store freezers,
midnight, those little
found treasures:
mother’s pack of cigarettes.
But now:
there are frogs in the trees
in evening, and standing
outside your car
at a gas station
you may imagine through dark,
dry lawn dust,
those houses where sausages
bubble in their nests of sweat
wet onions,
steam from iron,
shirt back, and
boys who have learned
with thumb and forefinger
to love the perfect sides
of triangle.
Helen is from Michigan, where life, while slow, is always fabulous.
