I scooped balls
from honey dew
while you hauled flagstones in the front yard.
When the cake cooled
I iced it with canned chocolate,
scraped the sides, licked my fingers,
and wondered why things hadn't changed much,
how one man still presides over the tug of war
in Washington, like Olympic Day in high school
when the juniors pulled the seniors through a pit
at the end of the football field; I lusted after Gordon Mitchell,
mud dripping from his wet curls. Even the froth of desire
hasn't changed in 45 years.
Somewhere a brass band plays The Washington Post march,
neighbors roast wieners on the grill,
rockets pop like kernels in a pan.
On the warm slab, we chalk an outline
of the United States, 48 sections;
California looks like Durante's nose,
Vermont, a stalactite,
In a rhomboid space beneath the step
you set the last flagstone, shaped like Nevada
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