This, a poem I wrote today while sitting in a hospital room where my father possibly has a very slight case of pneumonia or perhaps the flu, is in progress and will be edited in the future as I perfect it. It was an assignment to write a poem about a childhood memory, of which I have very few. I think it turned out pretty well, much better than my original idea which was going to be about the cheeseburger story.
Marco Polo
Sunlight echoes fiercely off
Burning chlorinated water, our dark hair
And olive skin refracting, newly red with summer
Four cousins squirming in opposition
Of our descending adolescence.
Cholla,
A perpetual danger to our soft, unmarred flesh,
Claims the youngest among us, flailing, screaming,
Ambushed by envious spade-shaped Lilliputians standing
One upon another, fearless in the sun.
Grandpa's arms, bristled and dark messiahs, weary
Skin like an ancient language, stretched
To disclose clandestine muscles. Laborer's hands screaming lies,
Betraying honest intentions, rubbing, swiftly
Antagonizing the guerilla spines buried in her leg.
Moments later they have fled and her evaporating tears
Make room for forgiveness.
A year later, with Grandpa gone, doctors find a tumor
In the oldest among us, which eventually makes us three
And leaves the name
Of an early Italian explorer echoing soundlessly
About every swimming pool, bouncing like ripples of light on
Coarse brick walls, never again to be answered.
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