Two Poems

Bobby

Bobby was abandoned by his mother as a child Bobby wandered about town playing hide and seek until he found his father who carried him to bed Bobby’s father gave him green and grey army men and left him alone in his room to play for hours Bobby taught himself to write and draw and thus he passed the years Bobby thought his testicles were baby birds that he cupped in his hands Bobby wondered when they would fledge and fly away Bobby worked in a planter by a parking lot The pavement stretched into the distance like a charcoal lake and the cars shimmered on its surface Cat’s Nest Bobby heard mewling when the sprinklers came on Bobby found a cat’s nest with black newborns wet from birth and irrigation Bobby thought the parking lot was their father Bobby felt sad when they cried in the rain and wished for their mother to move them away to a dry place Bobby went to look at them when the sprinklers stopped Bobby came up silently to the nest and peered in under the Azalea The mother hunched over her kittens like a charcoal tent licking the water off their bodies

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