The Park Spring 2014
The Long Drought
California bakes to brown a long rainless season.
My drought rattles unused letters, words.
Boxed up they wait.
Life continues to rain. Maybe
that’s the trouble.
A word drought from a life in flood.
Puppy romps, bites, chews in a rein
of puppy terror.
Bathroom floor creeps with shower rain and
screams a warning.
Cabinets gone, floor up, tub, sinks shatter
in remodel rain.
This flood rises torrents of shopping, deciding.
They tumble down life’s streets.
Movement blocked.
Letters clang metal on metal,
grind in radiation’s sterile machine,
lay trapped by a lead lined room.
Patient, they wait with me
as spouse is radiated
in a room designed for waiting.
They leap like deer onto electronic pages
as I read
one novel after another.
Radiation graduation completed,
certificate in hand, spouse breathes,
I breathe.
Ideas, letters, words, pictures flood
the rivers of my mind.
California bakes to brown a long rainless season.
It respectfully asks for a moment’s notice.
Janice Eskridge © August 2015
The Park Summer 2015
Winding Stream Press 