FULCRUM

In thick July rain,
three bare-chested boys
swing soaked shirts as they run.
Ahead, there is sun,
behind, more black clouds,
and a bike rushing
over wet road.

Then in the time
it takes a branch
to bend and crack in the wind,
the bike’s rear tire loses
touch with the tarmac,
making its front wheel
a fulcrum,
its rider a flailing dart.

And I remember a ripe mango
once fell from a roof-top wall
and landed in front of our house.
I followed my son
to where it lay,
and he took my hand
as we watched
nervous flies and a line of ants
approach the ruined fruit.

THIN

When the monsoon arrives,
they turn traffic barriers
into a line of open-faced dwellings,
each with a raised floor,
roof, and three walls—
a steel village, suddenly-sprung
from the roadside mud,
as yellow and bright
as a row of spring tulips.

Farther south, we pick our way
through families of laborers
who sleep outside on sidewalk stones
they laid last week.
One thin boy lies
between his brother and sister—
like my middle son,
he sleeps with his left knee raised;
his right arm shields his face
from moonlight and the buzz
of streetlamps.

Next morning in my kitchen,
the screen-scattered sunlight is thin—
like the scratch of the sweeper’s
stick broom on cement
and the shell of the egg that cracks
too soon in my hurried hand.

COLD LIKE THIS

In 1981, the recession sends my mother
and sisters to the West Coast,
leaving me at the mercy
of my father’s cooking:
potatoes and chops,
hamburger and buttered toast,
pancakes. That fall,
we eat close to the cracked stove,
watch reruns and discuss football,
sun spots, the art and science
of dying.

By late November, the leaves are down,
and there is ice along the shore
of the Chequamegon Bay.
When we drive to Rochester for Christmas,
the temperature drops to thirty below.
Wrapped in a knit blanket,
my Grandmother does not move
from the couch.
She has lost thirty pounds in three months.
She says you can’t keep
cold like this out.

On the way home,
our engine block cracks
somewhere on US 2.
Hood up and lights flashing,
at the edge of a frozen field,
we wait in blowing snow.