Do you hear him trilling for love?   but only the ghosts of single girls are there to listen   July through September, days filled with love nights of orgies   November in the mesquite tree, he serenades empty branches, pleads with a dull blue sky   a single insistent sound   a loneliness so loud in the silence

October 4th and I step outside, an arm-clutching 61 degrees   you may laugh, but fall starts fast here and ends even faster   deserts quick-change both days and seasons   in the blink of a few weeks snow may cover the peaks   while hammocks are still employed and skin does a summer burn   in one day, you might see a snowman and bikinis   maybe slip on ice then slip some into a drink   or bite a hotdog with a mouth still defrosting

At least two times a week, he takes his metal horse into town,             loads up the saddlebags and returns, as I rush to open the             trunk and unburden his steed.               I really can’t stand the glare of warehouse windows, the shaped             and colored things stuffed in plastic, anything on a hanger,             so many tiny boxes of confusion and those frosted doors             on freezing aisles.  Oh, and I hate lines, any kind of lines.