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
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