Southeast Portland

By Rhienna Guedry

One crow and one fat orange cat are in a staredown while
Celine Dion blasts from a passing Volvo blocks from
home It’s All Coming Back To Me Now
Remember how I pointed out the cyclist with a brown plastic
duck bungeed to his bike? You said it looked like firewood

I love exploring this city on foot; I walk around, sometimes
with a foster dog, noting the intersections with stunning fig trees
​ ​ ​​​ ​​ ​​​ ​ ​​ ​ ​​​ ​ ​​ ​ ​​​ ​ ​SE 49th & Taylor Pine & SE 27th

A free box holds two cookbooks and crystals worn smooth
I walked a painted mirror home from this block once, but left
the vintage sewing patterns in a mustard yellow box behind

Once I stumbled across a family taking a photograph
under dormant wisteria there were so many of them, enough
for a sports team, all smiling & cheering, just down the street
from the Gardenburger mansion that has been slowly turning
purple, another block from the “Honk If U Love Elvis” van

Near the seminary on a stroll like a solitary game of I Spy: an
avocado Chevy 3100, the kayak and canoe museum, a sign for
the ukulele lessons — and the ukulele lessons themselves

Someone left a house plant by the curb, with a post-it declaring
​ ​ ​​​ ​​ ​​​ ​ ​​ ​ ​​​ ​ ​​ ​ ​​​ ​TAKE ME
so now a little part of them is a part of me
so long as I can keep the plant alive.