Sketches - 32 (October 4th, 2014)

32.

Dead leaves scattered on the

sidewalk in front of Loveland

Elementary, Omaha Nebraska

Westside School, parked here

to pick up Zoey, then zip over

to the middle school to pick up

Max.  A nondescript man

in worn denim-blue shorts

and a blue bill cap is

talking to someone parked here

picking up their own kids.  The trees

all around are motionless and the
air is hot.  More car pull in

like trout sniffing around a

stream after the seasonal

voyage is over.  Mercedes

4-wheel drive, Buicks, BMW’s,

flippant old brown mini-vans

and this time of year the 3:21 PM

sun is already on a gradual

southern descent dipping earlier

into the west, wrapping the town

up in a chalky dirt glow as the

trees are rusty and vague with

pre-fall colors before the

brilliant end-of-year Autumn.

Picking up kids is all part

of the schedule, the busy

point blank firing squad shooting

down days as I sit here with

thoughts about my wife’s naked body

and I’m certain that on days

like this, given the chance, we’d

simply pick up the kids and

drive away into forever.

A whole noisy population of

children pour out of the school.

Cars gently idle, hum,

           vibrate.

All this adult sex started the kids, started

up the schools, the bills, the governments

foot up our collective ass.  However, my

kids are mine to protect from all that

                       horseshit

as the rest of it belongs to God and what

ever will is stolen away from us, our souls

tumbling like dry leaves in the dominant

                  Will of the unseen.

(October 4th, 2014)

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