This fork in history could veer
wildly left, though the bus driver
announces he forgot his glasses
at home but memorized the route.
Don’t worry, I have been this way
before and before and whatever
obstacles you see before me
and before you belong in just
those places in the long telescope
observing the passage of time
(originally published in Linked Verse, Summer 2023)
Walking over paved bricks
under sunlight in January,
it is quiet enough
to hear the earth shiver
from her breath, far
from the Los Angeles heat
I grew used to– a hundred
police cars wailing down
Vermont past blurs
of fleeting sidewalks,
boarded-up businesses
adorned in graffiti,
and dead black bags
full of not-Autumn
leaves.
(originally published in Home Planet News Online, 2017)