Gum balls strike the patio. The
        trees in our backyard are so far away,
        I can see only the branches
        fan their trunks in the humidity,

        setting the wind free to roam,
        sheepishly, brush its mid-day film
        over the redwood set, the forest green
        vinyl chairs & the umbrella,

        as if the wind was an unskilled burglar
        clumsily fingering our things,
        leaving everything valuable,
        everything worthless.

        Even my mother's skin, sun-burnt,
        ushering vodka through its pores,
        is stroked by his fingers,
        then left for older, wilder yards,

        for the colors of other women,
        over the fence where another patio
        plays host to his sweaty touch,
        where another child joins my breath,

        the grass, bulbs, spores
        of careful gardens that lap the periphery,
        where we dream & float to meet them,
        paintbrushes in our hands.

        Soon we'll be old enough
        to form layers with our little art,
        pilfer another neighborhood
        as gangs of slumbering thieves.

Copyright © Peter Tomassi, 2001.  All Rights Reserved.