I ripened in suburban backyards.
Hopeful, under telephone wires and housecoats.
Wavering on something that entered me like spring.
Shifting away from fantasies of being mommy,
toward something far less scripted.

That summer dusk, serenaded by crickets,
we rode all the way back -- me on the bicycle
seat behind you. My breath on your neck , that
sweaty boy mineral smell, palms pressing into
metal, balancing my legs on either side of the
wheel, lurching against the sudden increases of speed.

Later at night on the freeway, lights lazily glided by
on the windows; looking up at the stars and
in the distance over the unwavering trench, an oil refinery --
nightmare castle breathing fire.

Grandmas car smelled of moldering
plastic and Lilies of the Valley
" he sees everything ", she would say of the
strange painting of Jesus knocking
on the window of the skyscraper

" and he so loved the world "
the world, world dark and deep
I stretched toward aching
What was hunger at twelve?