Retaliation

Ashes of trees shroud the neighborhood,
a fresh dusting every morning
rises from the jaws of the bulldozers.
Wendell, determined to keep his car shiny
returns to his driveway
with sponge, hose and bucket.
I'm sitting Shiva with the forest
next to the three brawny machines
in the clean dirt swath they've
rolled out like a carpet
not at all like the junkyard heap
of a forest floor.
I can't tell what's the wind
or the creek or the moan of the freeway
between gusts of silence.
In the middle dozer's windshield
there's a bullseye-shaped crack
where the Earth, resilient, feisty
old bitch that she is
kicked a stone into the Goliath's eyes.

Perfume

He found a blond wisp of hair near his pillow, unmistakably her length and twine, slightly curled, like a line of cursive. He pulled it taut and smelled it, but the lonely strand no longer carried the fragrance. He had been thinking of her often recently, how she used to lay her head on his shoulder and he’d put his nose in her hair like a bouquet, but he couldn't quite remember what she smelled like. Shampoo, certainly, but what kind? Summer storm? Tangerine Dream? Lilac Wine?

On an August day he was riding his bike near her house and a warm wind was blowing and all at once the scent floated down like music. The flowers in the trees smelled exactly of her hair. He stopped pedaling and put his nose up and drew in deep, rapid breaths, one on top of another, trying to possess the smell. He rode in circles beneath the trees, sniffing, sniffing, sniffing, but it eluded him, and soon drifted away like a current of warm water in a cold lake. He pedaled off.