#2 [revised]

Hannah is in the kitchen
In her red dress, cooking
With Marlene,
Their feet padding
On the dirt-brown floor.
St. Joan in the window
Looks down on them and smells
The onions and sausage
Frying in the pan,
Heating the afternoon.

Ode to 90638

In the backyard there is a swimming pool
and a vast expanse of cement stretching wall to wall
and the walls are bricks cemented together
in tones of white and grayish-red—
then there’s the bushes.
They creep over the walls and weeds
spring through the cracks in the ground.
Here you have a choice—to fill your yard—
The lawn or the swimming pool.
The swimming pool is blue with bugs and leaves in it
and the light reflects in glowing puddles
on the awning in the morning.