every night, an empty street
but for the spinning tires
and giggly routines
of our young world travelers

for a moment yesterday,
cave people emerged,
filling the block
with ice cream and laughter,
though we’d never seen their faces before

how impossible, twenty-four
houses to a block, and we’re
the only twenty-first century
Neanderthals willing to play outside?

at least fifteen children
filled their cones for free ice cream
while the adults swapped
stories about perpetually closed blinds
to keep the bogeyman
from staking a claim on their flat screens

is this how it feels to touch
the upper middle? where he and i
stand sidelined because we don’t
have a personal chef,
patients at six a.m.,
or the nerve to book our children’s
lives so full that they never see
the light of day?

i’ll take my old hood,
my blue-collar cul-de-sac,
where my kids played with the neighbors
till the streetlights came on,
or the vacant lot in Cartagena
where the Moroccans–poor immigrants like us–
taught them how to pick figs from trees and make chalk out of broken pieces of wall

all of this i carried on the tip of my tongue
as the party ended, the street emptied,
and the wealth blocked out all light…

all life.

until the moment when our doors open,
our girls run free,
and the cavemen come back to their roots

electric mushrooms
that disappear with gold coins?
take that, Mario!

pack reality
to fit snugly on shoulders
bid mountains adieu

burger cooked with guilt
to meet misbehaving girls
and her stressed-out face

later, block party
personal chefs, burglar cams?
i miss the aspens

with ice cream melting
i say, we should have done this
before we had kids

it’s because of me
(took my boy from Tennessee)
silent acceptance

they fight over pics
wish they could climb those boulders
too many, too rough

pack reality
in a weekend backpack trip
you’ll disturb demons

sleep in to stream song
squirrels tattle while birds sing
the joy of quiet

painted by fresh rain
a burned out forest brightens
gold, silver steal brown

protected from wind
we share a moment alone
we love to pique peaks

my wet fire fades
until you stack teepeed wood
you’re always my flame

the moon a spotlight
full circle at sixteen years
holds us together

we planned sixteen years
she just met them yesterday
freedom and constraint

tree-covered crossing
keeps us from imagined lake
a stream bed will do

mosquitoes move in
our tent anniversary
they can’t steal our love

forest to ourselves
distant creek, birds’ lullaby
romance in the night

one in shoe, one wheeled
chores churning into child’s play
rediscover home

belt, Bourbon trail hat
soft southern love reminders
of homes, old and new

tall trees, city streets
a walking score wins the night
you grin, wind winds down

word play your birthday
girls proudly carry cheesecake
oh, to be young, old

you sleep beside me
breath as soft as that first night
loved you then, and now

with tiny trapped tears
her joy melts into sorrow
how she loves Daddy