...green with the milk of nine glaciers.
-John Suiter, Poets on the Peaks
Today’s bloom, the bleeding heart. Yes, the same thing
for years and years. I walk all the way to City Lights,
a real break, purchase two books, Ripple Effect,
Some Notes on My Programming, sweat. Big guy
with a bunch of kids (field trip?) asks me if I know where
Merchant Street is. I don’t. I forgot. It’s somewhere.
One of the girls says she likes my shirt. It’s pink.
Wondering if Buddhism is just about sitting. Seems so
from this book, a nice way to forget about cubicles.
Surely it’s more complicated than that. In the air over
San Francisco, flying. Larry will meet me in Dallas
and drive us up to the funeral. It was Friday the 13th
when he died. I was watching Amores Perros. Ginger’s
in Oklahoma. Coming down for a landing already.
Last time I fly without Xanax. Reading To Kill a
Mockingbird. Official state bird of Arkansas.
Easter tomorrow. Rebirth. Renewal. All
four of us, dressed to the nines in the front yard,
the 1970s, tulips, Sunday School, bright as spring.
