Naming the Dead Places
Cienega Campground – Science Club
planted sapling pines, you spooked
a rattlesnake – all those hopeful pines
rot now at the bottom of a reservoir.
Alfalfa fields where you used to ride
bareback, easing the math lessons
out of your spine – fields diced now
into “Drive” and “Court” and “Avenue.”
Soledad Canyon, where you looked out
the late-bus window in the dark
for that one true-love star – it’s
just a freeway exit now.
Life extends its plains forever.
Who rewrites geography, a child’s
own history, when the place
it happened doesn’t exist anymore?
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