This town is not a suburban machine,
it textures yearning in geometry
in sequence of trees and blue wired high,
cones and rods organize harmonies
with an emotional design
the hug of sun-melt panorama
hedging and stoop like opaque gold
roofs slope to seat of the soul:
the street yellowed happy, Sunday drives
glide porous through canopy shafts
over sidewalks handsomely untidy
soaked from hoses and buckets,
granular wet in smoky air steeped
BBQ smells sweet and sad, like Johnny Cash,
picking up on ambient lonely,
on this street I think I can smell the sea
where my feet imagine the grass
on the other side of fragrant cedar fence,
a balance beam for the crows and cats
Jessica Lee McMillan © 2021
