Summer days of our youth
that will not come again, the
strawberry
scab kneescape, the wet spots
young girls pressed into swimming
pool
concrete, the dash across the
front lawn
clutching quarters, dimes in
sweating
hands for the ice cream truck.
Cool shadows at midday
under dense umbrellas of prune
trees,
almonds, peaches, stacked pallets
of wooden crates under long shed
roofs of corrugated sheet metal.
Riding bicycles of only one gear
across flat fields channeled by
concrete irrigation ditches, up
hills
west of town tumbled as a last
thought
out of the Coast Range wrinkling
toward sunset in the Pacific.
I am riding my bicycle along
twisting streets that no longer
lead homeward, but the handlebars
come off in my grip like a
divining rod
that dips downward, downward.
And I begin to dig.
