August Occurances #1

The mother that read her son many books,
disguising her raspy voice to conjure laughs,
lied next to him like a conjoined twin
each night before his eyes folded
into shapes of sleeping origami—
has gracefully slipped
behind a distant corner. A metaphor
soared off his father’s tongue in explanation:
“her bare feet, now walk atop cold concrete,
her back could no longer carry
what this home has built atop
the land of her flattened spine.”

Intelligent from the many conversations
of her mother’s talking into his listening
ears, he believed, if only to pretend,
she will return with a bag of new books.

August Occurances #2

The black-haired girl, sitting, the shape
of a nickel, head down, not bowing, not resting,
crying. As I approach, she senses my growing
shadow crawl beneath her tiny feet.
Her head rises, not the gallant
greeting of dawn, but pouting lips,
clear mucus falling from a reddened
nose and fiery tears open toward me.

In front of her: a little boy, her brother
badly distorted, a bike, mangled. Behind me,
the howl of an ambulance and the squeal of their
mother’s obsessive What Happened! painting
the block a color of irritable panic.

August Occurances #3

She invited us, my love and me to a party, she,
our coworker with the crying eyes. The party
will represent leaving, her young brother, a soldier,
a being sent to battle soldier, a defending soldier,
a son first soldier, in a shot glass of moments
a new sky will envelop the peace that walked
backwards into hidden shadows, and she, our
crying coworker will be wandering, wondering
when the returning party shall take place
and overwhelm any memory of his battling
absence.

©Felino Soriano 2006