Concrete Pastoral
Live oaks’ dry boats clatter in gutters like junky cereal
for a god who makes bad choices.
In sideview mirror a tree, most common object, spotlit
by the alphabet, in runes, in ruins, the essence
of 13,146 piles sunk in the North Sea upholding
one Amsterdam palace.
What would Vermeer make of the midcentury’s
photorealist painters, sheen on their Mustangs, streetscapes
reflected in hoods of four-door sedans.
Storefront window, curbside trashcan, broken
branch of ash on a sidewalk brought alive
by notice, crepe myrtle flaming fuchsia,
a Target parking lot’s grey order punctured
by the aquiline nose of an unhoused man
late in his seventies, belted neat in khakis, pulling
a carry-on with his duffle balanced
on top as though to board a plane to Vegas
at the far side of the six-lane street. Lips
moving nonstop. Silver-plated aviator lenses
flash the landscape of his endless public day.