Rooms we lived in that spring had the feel of nowhere
like Sundays at the park’s long cement tables
grills giving up blue smoke to blue mountains
blocks away an avenue of orange-gemmed trees
near the Colonial Garden, the Willow Glen, the Capri,
apartments where migrants waited Monday mornings
for pickups to take them to a field where the last
orchard of Orchard Road was newly bulldozed
the men’s straw cowboy hats at park tables on Sundays
blue ice shadows dropping from eucalyptus
nearby, usually, a girl with hand on hip, tight t-shirt
shot with glitter, at her throat a tiny gold cross
arms filled with pastel spume of infant
blankets as up and up the hills new houses climbed
in bony whiteness, skinny palms leaning hard
as night drew on and with it small birds tweeting
with joy, I said, some footsteps
overhead and a radio’s astringent song