San Diego Poem: Palm Sunday

For Deirdre Lickona

Tonight, the bluish TV screen warps into wine’s darkness--
Each hollowed head, each explosion, each kiss or gun
Stretches its restless bandwidth as through a glass vessel.

I lie. Nothing is going on outside. A dog barks
That same nothing in the moon’s language, although archeology
Has long since laid him to rest: in Pharaohs’ tombs,

Concubines laced their necks with canine teeth. The dogs
Capitulated; lost their place among the stars--Good dogs . . .
And California is grateful for the Great Bear: desire dips

Down and plays out along the sky’s palm-strewn edge,
And for no such idea, the tall slender trunks ball up
Their fists of palm. Sunday prays to draw near enough,

To blunt the week’s point: Saturday’s milieu of flight and fight,
Of kiss and gun, of dogs and kings, of death and light--
The blue, drank as purple, distills the rest into San Diego’s days.