Summer days spent like currency,

Exchanging hands and falling in between the cracks,

                Feeling in between the seats, but still out of reach.

          Falling in between stars, but still out of reach

                                                     As the windshield wipers make their case as hypnotists.

                                            As the headlight make their case as exhibitionists.

Blowing like leaves,

Yet afraid of the  height from which they fall.

A land of no water but of so many possibilities,

So many waterfalls,

Infinite ideas blooming all the time,  like a garden when spring is thrown  onto the canvas,

                                                                      By a very tired winter.

                                           By a very tired wint…

Stray cats, and their non-existent collars spring back and fourth like volleyballs,

Darting from yard to yard, scaling fences like

Rampant tricksters,

Or wayward volleyballs,

Spiked over taut nets,

Silent as they make their way;

                                                      Worrying the  panting dogs and delivering on their promise of annexing all the  surrounding above ground pools.

Still at night.

Still in the night.

Watching intently the   boundless peasant, wandering the countryside and begging for crumbs,

Flask  at his hip, concealed in paper bags,

           Or in yesterdays newspaper,

Shirt wrinkled and un-tucked,

What hair is left, having never felt the embrace of a comb.

                         having never lifted a finger anyways,

sneaking in when the old mother falls asleep, listening  to talk radio,

Seeking out a place to sleep, and nothing more.

But the observant  cats,

Looking for the flattest rooftops on which to imagine the moon as a ball of yarn,

And dream of unwinding it,

and tiptoeing around  the fluctuating  tides that would

Inevitably spill over  as a result,

Spending nights like these,

Only ever keeping one eye open for the occasional sprinkler,

With either poor or perfect timing, depending on you’re perception;

Days will arise and garage doors open,

&

The houses yawn,

The houses yawn,

A potted plant, cut from the cloth of another.

Cain & Abel, in garden form.

Gifted by a neighbor, a traitor.

Planted by a founder, and an innovator,

The banana tree shoots upward into the sky like a beanstalk,

This  particular crop yields no giants though.

                                                                         This particular crop yields no giants though.

All the eyes of all the cats,

Eyes like marbles and like planets and some like bottle-caps,

Watch the tree grow gently at first,

Crawling on it’s hands and knees,

Tended to ,

&

pruned and showered with praise,

Sent off to college to learn lessons of nutrition,

& incandescence, and other incarnations of light.

Then battered by sharp, seasonal  winds that shred the leaves like tissues,

                               in it’s adolescent years.

Looking  more now like bony fingers and tattered flags

then  the once vibrant, technicolor leaves of yesterday,

But with an focused

&

                                                     Nimble  audience such as this.

Such as the one existing  only in this universe, watching from

Open windows, and

Some sitting in trees,

A select few seated in the VIP section,

who also get to fire the cannons, at the end of the ceremony.

            & their assortment of eyes,

& colors,

& duties.

The banana tree regrouped,

Sat in a comfortable chair,

Spoke to a therapist,

& then

Cut it’s teeth on some discarded cinderblocks used to hold up

A  nearby derelict fence,

 practicing  the  lines so frequently  until they couldn’t   bare to echo  anymore.

And practicing the lines until they echo,

until they  sunk in forevermore.

With gaps  so large, entire suburban  conversations find their way through;

A toothy smile, slowly on it’s way down.

 Wayward trails of  smoke or steam float up and over,

like  the sultry , phantasmal arms of cartoons,

permeating from a destination unknown,

trying to recruit the passing vampires.

                                trying to recruit the technicians dispatched by cable companies.

Followed by a static  phone call,

To a pest control company, and

A subsequent  argument about pricing,  and the validity of termite prevention,

entirely   on speakerphone so the rest of the universe could can hear,

So it can be remembered, and archived,

                                if not only for the sheer magnitude of it all.

& as the applause began, and the trophy was being polished back stage,

The magician waved waves his wand, and all the clowns piled into one car, and for once the one-liners

&

Non-sequiturs from the mouths of the stand up comics,

Who took the stage last,

Didn’t fall flat.

                instead, they soared,

Over the tops of streetlights, and the heads of many others,

                                 and so  a

Beautiful bundle of bananas  was born,

                                Hanging on the wrong side of that fence,

                                                 Hanging just out of reach.

& then thy neighbor was gone, passed like a spirit into the mountains.

Pressed like a photograph into a scrapbook.

advice you should never take.

& the cats and all their eyes  were left,

                   left looking for something to sink their teeth into.

Looking for a place to store their daggers.

 Left behind  to watch the moving trucks and

The white horses pull away,

And the dust that will settle behind them.

A finely manicured lawn, and some low hanging fruit, the only reminders, of

                                                         what was.