Termite Road
I
the toucan sang from the Quipo tree
beyond their slingshots
as their sneakers glided softly
over the shimmer of new-cut grass and dew
II
a boy
hoists up his faded jeans
and goes squishing through the fields
of early summer mornings
III
flipping baseball cards right through noon
at the whitest wall
IV
Day is done gone the sun
makes its last faint scratches round the groove
V
the mother uppercut and jabbed the air
cheered him on
as he windmill pummeled after a fashion
to the middle rounds
the father golden glover was appalled
hearing how he fell without a blow
an exuberance
the good fight
trained a whole year long
the father in his corner
primed to be the sure thing
all now is gone
but the crazed-banshee dance lingers on
VI
The parakeets were a swarm of color on the mango tree
outside the sister’s window
dolls with ceramic heads on the sill
with their unblinking eyes
stared, long inured to their beauty,
as they savaged the mangoes with fury
ascending above
the white palm trees
VIII
freckles clustered and dispersed
across the mother’s face like migratory birds
following the law of the seasons
so she’d don a hat
when the sun would burst through
This was her argument
as she would peer into the lens
hatless
as the father
merciless in his black and white precision
caught forever the speckled route of migratory birds
as in their haste
they dotted the landscape of her face
IX
What did the poem know
of the child
as he hung a chrysalis from a twig
what did it know of the repeated fictions
That time did not consume?
X
A tree house in a mango tree
a sea of leaves
where they’d plot
amidst the province of birds
Noting their dissent for the record
at summer’s end
© 2013-2015 j. a. morales-santo domingo
I
the toucan sang from the Quipo tree
beyond their slingshots
as their sneakers glided softly
over the shimmer of new-cut grass and dew
II
a boy
hoists up his faded jeans
and goes squishing through the fields
of early summer mornings
III
flipping baseball cards right through noon
at the whitest wall
IV
Day is done gone the sun
makes its last faint scratches round the groove
V
the mother uppercut and jabbed the air
cheered him on
as he windmill pummeled after a fashion
to the middle rounds
the father golden glover was appalled
hearing how he fell without a blow
an exuberance
the good fight
trained a whole year long
the father in his corner
primed to be the sure thing
all now is gone
but the crazed-banshee dance lingers on
VI
The parakeets were a swarm of color on the mango tree
outside the sister’s window
dolls with ceramic heads on the sill
with their unblinking eyes
stared, long inured to their beauty,
as they savaged the mangoes with fury
ascending above
the white palm trees
VIII
freckles clustered and dispersed
across the mother’s face like migratory birds
following the law of the seasons
so she’d don a hat
when the sun would burst through
This was her argument
as she would peer into the lens
hatless
as the father
merciless in his black and white precision
caught forever the speckled route of migratory birds
as in their haste
they dotted the landscape of her face
IX
What did the poem know
of the child
as he hung a chrysalis from a twig
what did it know of the repeated fictions
That time did not consume?
X
A tree house in a mango tree
a sea of leaves
where they’d plot
amidst the province of birds
Noting their dissent for the record
at summer’s end
© 2013-2015 j. a. morales-santo domingo