Summer Block Party

This poem appears in my book, Blown into Now: Poems for a Journey, and was first published in the MONTEREY POETRY REVIEW

Dusk yawns, dozes on a cloud.
Houses shrink and fade into gray
as a sultry wind skitters free.
Euphoria blows a tune down the street.
 
Watch with me.
Is that timpani or thunder?
 
Date palms pitch and sway the backbeat,
showing lots of leg.
In kindled air, jasmine thinks it’s dawn,
time for a spray of perfume.
The giant oak puffs and billows.
Her spiral stems become hands
weighted by opulent rings,
clicking like castanets.
 
Poplars oscillate, maples jiggle,               
and all the trees no one can name
throb and shiver and green the sky
with leaves and limbs.
 
Dance your desire into my arms.
I promise you the unspent night.