Polio Season in the San Joaquin
for Nick
It was something about the mustard colored Chevrolet
streaking along the ditch
that crosses the vineyard— my friend, Will,
standing in the back with the blonde stalk
of his grandfather’s Chilean .22
putting a little elvis to the shoulder. The
rabbits lost to the zigzag dust of their stumblings
as if, one by one, they were being absorbed
into that slim margin of darkening woods.
