The cats streak past
the hedge and the hedge is marked
by stones and ambulances.
Tsunamis are the new thing.
A sign outside the restaurant
offers a safe route.
There’s something no
about everyone in the summer,
and then there’s doubt,
like the woman who asked
about my shirt
at the liquor store;
I didn’t hear her at first
and she was disturbed by that.
I don’t know about
human beings; the way
everything seems
like what it’s not, until it is
that way and one
feels foolish. I wish
I could not care,
I really do. But smoke rises
beyond the hills
at Los Alamos
and they’ve cleared out
all nonessential personnel.
I remember the cave I entered
on honeymoon with
my wife near there
to see the Native American
painting, a white outline
of a man raising his hands
in a gesture of war or of succor.
I couldn’t tell which.