Dennis Cummings
Delivery
After the flowers were bought
at the night market in L.A.
we laid them out on the warehouse floor
in newspaper-wrapped bundles
ready for the day's orders.
We were in the low rent district,
the building's ruptured double door
locked with a chain at night.
A little after dawn I'd load the bobtail
and drive through the inland valleys
and beyond, to the foothills climbing
into a low cordillera
through a region of red boulders
where gusts would rock the truck.
Below, the desert was checkered
with canal-fed cotton
and half-mile rows of sugar beets.
A milky ribbon of insecticide
lay above a field of melons.
On the other side of the highway
a broken kite twisted in a ditch.
From a mile away
at the sweltering Alamo Stockyards
I could hear the cattle bellow
as the loading in a trailer began.
Night Runner
On sleepless nights
I circumvent the jack-hammers,
the asphalt rollers—huge drums
that press and level hot black gum.
Dodge the strobes
that flash atop A-frames,
run past pop-up sprinklers
and curtained rectangles of light.
Inhale diesel fumes
at the edge of the city
where bulldozers are starting up.
Jog this fogless morning
until a trail is reached
that ascends the foothill's summit—
from where the valley is surveyed
as if I were an explorer.
These runs are getting harder
with my worn-out spine—
a rusted bicycle chain
that won't straighten out.
A van the color of nopal
raises dust, cresting the rise,
and something says they're not coming
to bring me water.
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