Next Up in the Continuing Poem Series About the Summer of 2006 Comes This One

July 14, 2006
Last night on the way home

on the bus there was a kid
all the way in the back
with a homemade paper-plate mask
shoved up on his forehead
upon reflection I believe it was a lucha libre face
   
Then when I got home
there was a new blue and white striped shoe box
sitting on our front porch
the lid open and inside
a pair of run-down odd old faded reddish plastic sand shoes
like someone bought new shoes
and changed into them on our front steps
leaving the box and their old shoes behind
Maybe it was one of those boys who wait overnight
in their lawn chairs with their blankets wrapped around them
outside the trendy shoe store down the block
Anyway I wouldn’t have given it another thought
except later in the evening as I was clearing the table
I happened to glance out the window
and see on the front porch of the building across the street
a blue and white striped shoe box there too

This morning it was so foggy that it was almost raining
tiny pinpoints of an extremely fine mist
just barely tactile on my legs and face
Then down on Stockton a car so shiny and new
it didn’t yet have license plates went by
covered in big drops of water like it came out of a hard rain
Maybe it was pouring on the other side of the tunnel