Connect the Dots, Dixie Salazar

IMG_2512Untitled, London Bellman

 

Connect the Dots

Today I saw a man
dark as asphalt, skin shiny
as a nugget of coal
pushing a shopping cart
down Echo, a cart loaded
two feet above the rim
topped by a plum stained log
cabin quilt, hand stitched–
the cart rattled and groaned
with most likely all he
owned. Heat waves crashed around
him, air surf making
visible the hundred
plus heat that drowned him and
thickened the air he pushed
his worldly goods against
headed for his cardboard
crib, papered with coloring
book pages of connect
the dots—from baby rattle
to hand me down dump truck
from stinging belt buckle
to slamming backyard gate
to gavel smacked down on
unforgiving oak – to
the slow unraveling
from inside him, mother
board lights dying out like
quiet stars in a still
core filled with echoes that
bump, rattle and disappear–
swallowed in the deep
and moonless well of night.

___________________
Dixie Salazar

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