In Reno it is winter still. The arboretum
has a scruffy time of it, stunted
spruce and maple leaves balled up
in fists.

Only the cottonwoods sprawled
bare in the creek look
bold and at ease; Civil War gravestones
stand at attention in cold gravel, a windy
parade ground overlooking the lit city.

Oz, someone called it today,
wonderful from the outside, whitewashed
tombs that glow in the gathering dark, clouds
pushing over the Sierra Nevada, bellying up,
limbs reaching down from the sky, eager
to cast their crystal dice.

 

One morning the hamster
was gone, just after the news
of your leaving. We feared the frayed

cords behind the stereo, a nest
in my slipper, the smell of death.
Still, the search by dust and knee

and little lights. In closet crevice
your bright eyes, the quivering
whiteness of your chest.

 

Read all you want—it won't
do you any more good
than it has to. Same as when

you tried to kiss your cat on the lips
in kindergarten—she only
went along with it because

you'd been eating tuna fish.
Anything you think you have
learned has come to you

by accident, including
this poem. Too late
to stop now. You're it.

 

I look down on what may be the Sierra's largest parking lot,
valley of asphalt, desert of Olympic spirit, basement floor
for elevators cabling into mountain meadows. Up here,

granite slabs exfoliate in clean white sheets. So might
pavement gently slip away some night, knowing its place,
seeking out a new beginning, shattered talus, lower ground.