Summertime Love Poems

1

there were california poppies
where i grew up
a native son

at home on the asphalt lines
we call streets, but
years ago were maybe
properly called rivers.

heat waves, now and then,
before me and probably after me
will rise just the same,
even when the water
turns thick and black.

2

isn’t love foolish?
aren’t those who love foolish?
but aren’t we human beings
foolish regardless?

i love—i loved
and am foolish for it:
my humanity demands no less
(many times, women would
give me no more!).

3

humid days have a way of
making me not want to
sweat for no reason.

your pretty red hair
falls in strands, singly
and sweatily,
your eyes are the cool blue
pools i seek repose in:

those sweet blue eyes
in which i seek repose
from those hot asphalt afternoons.

4

the pretty floral pattern on her shirt
moves as the wind
used to move through the
beds of california poppies
where i once lived,

and i am brought to think
that summer ends too soon.

5

her breasts: hills—
the shirt of flowers
a summertime
past eight at night
(so, down around her feet)—
uncovered, now,
winter never was so warm.

6

i remember idly
in books somewhere i read
that children used to
play in the spray of fire hydrants.

you smile
your lips sweet with sweat.

7 (7-10 6.26.05)

ninety or so days:

it is amazing that
the earth needs so few drops of rain
to spring up in growth,

and equally so that
a few drops makes the difference.

8

i was convinced
that a day would last so long.

you—would you lie?

it was i who fooled myself
into thinking that your blue eyes
could stretch as unendingly
as summertime skies.

9

i still like iced coffee
in cafes under waving trees.

10

the man of ressentiment
sits in cafes and exchanges
kisses for words—

pages of poetry can serve,
in certain moments,
to soak up spilt coffee.

11 (6.27.05)

it rains, too, in the summer
usually warm drops
falling through the humid air.

they cool the body
but each as it falls and breaks
on the ground
is a memory of this and that

and, just like the dry brown dirt
everything is made to mud.

12

fog in the winter
fog in the spring

fog is fog, even in the summer.

it obscures
and in its grayness
things are made to look more beautiful

it obscures the things ahead
and the things past
and even the things as they are now

the green hill in the distance
wrapped in tendrils of gray.

13

my tongue moves against you
and, though we could never visit the sea,
there is the salt and insistence
of waves melting beach away.