Landscaping

for the kids who lost their ball under television clouds

the pesticides tuning May’s green sprawl question birds
streaking watery skies with the shadow of schmutz
you shrink beneath trees’ grimaces with a prelude
to last light pleading on blacktop courts

for the kids who lost their ball under television clouds
sewers crowd with forgotten dolls with cut dreams
that fluoresce like white smiles of desperate locusts
and then the drums with breath held tight in your brain

o but you’re still geeked off the last ignorant dusk
stuffing your face with the guilt your voice dragged in
what are you supposed to bury here to grow old
dragging behind you the dead friends you left back home

she can’t see how hard you try to weed out expired rivers
she won’t be around to teach you to swim them