On Leaving
by Jonathan Devin

When I saw you last headed down Main Street,
you looked peaceful, resigned to vacancy,
like my mother was upon news of infertility.
Your face pressed to shoulder, collar pushed up
against the rain, as if to light a cigarette—though
we all knew you quit because you know what’s fun will kill you,
but you still drink on occasion
as you will do tonight, as would anyone, alone
in a one bedroom apartment, lined with boxes
and made blue from the skylight,
arguing with the moon over how many
until allowing maybe one more sip.
In the café doorway, I stand smoking and imagine,
as you turn the corner, how the edges of your shoes must feel to the concrete.
And I envy the sidewalk because each step means something--
movement towards new jobs and lovers and the empty car
beneath fluorescence and more concrete.   
And tomorrow, when your mother calls,
she will ask about your day; you can hear her breathing,
your father shouting at the news.
And you think about the broken Ford pickup
behind the shed, light blue, growing
into rust and weeds, 
and how, at seven, you would sit in the driver’s seat,
eyes shut, gripping the chapped wheel,
with radio blasting, and hope
for motion.
 

Last Season's Watermelons

Today we ate watermelons in the garden together. 
The red fruit sweat beneath the canvas awning and bled
into the paper towel underneath. And we laughed
and spit the seeds onto the long August grass where
they sank into the earth to swell and spread
the way the memory of a place dissolves into colors
and shapes. 
Today will be a blue day,
an edgeless ripple, a wine bottle tossed
into a lake—the energy rushing outward and spilling
onto rocks and weeds. 
Tonight the rinds will rot in the compost heap.
Next year we will have more watermelons. 


Time Moves

As the rim of a tire grows darker
above the white ring
below the worn grooves
and the loop of rope 
suffocating the center.
Watch it sway 
beneath the oak tree, planted
by someone’s grandfather
he himself now growing smaller
all except the droop below the distant stare
above the neck rocking side to side, towed by the old rope, until
the movement drops chin to chest
and time wins.  
You have his eyes, they will tell you.
It’s in that passing twinkle that cracks--
a spark leaping from a fireplace and
catching the haunches of a sleeping cat. 
And your neck too moves, it arches
backward, as you spin. 
the rope groans like an old mattress. 
The blue and branches swirl together
and you can no longer tell up from down
as you are thrown by the movement
and sit on the scuffed earth.
Be still, child.
Close your eyes and feel the motion.