The Neighborhood Howled

Photograph by Reka Jellema. Copyright May 2015.

The Neighborhood Howled

Theirs was a street
of concrete
playthings, imaginings,
a tractor made of tin, an earth-
mover pushing soil from
the common garden

within the dwellings, fathers
made soup from ham hocks,
girls wore duck shoes, boys
galoshes. fathers in shirtsleeves
and flat tops, stirring,
stirring

whilst in the sandbox
sand held the shape
of the child they buried,
pail and shovel,

the mom
who sat on a swingset
watching

him sifting
handfuls of sand
stuck in a never
land wayward
eyes circling
open-
mouthing

juggling charred orbs
tangled in galaxies
sidewalk walkers
phone gazers
scorn

he adored
every ship
that ever nosed through space
made mud pies
from dark matter

the neighborhood howled
at his passing

at the Buddha
cross-legged
and stony, sky-
bound paleface. A moon
of a ghost, as hard
and yellow
as a butter lamb.


By Reka Jellema   
Copyright
April 3, 2015