The Bond

How is it I have lived

too long?

I chart my steps by

the number of erasures.

 

The stones roll over

in search of the widow's mite

this hot dry hour when the streets

melt like molasses 

and the thick death salts

vapor hangs like chlorine.

 

Tremors move-

and the new wave

horrible in its hushness

pits its way down the driveway

in back of the bright red cab

whose meter stalls in the half

erect way that lids do when

they stick to eyes.

 

Now I stand above an old stove

scrubbed to the metal base

of its porcelain grin and shake

a single portion of chicken

in a plastic bonnet

It's so hard to eat vegetables-

especially broccoli with the 

stalk and stems yellow

from base to bud.