Shelter-in-Place

Quarantine be damned, skateboarders
are doing stunts at the park
surrounded by a chain-link fence.
Riding the rain-slicked, concrete basin
on low-friction wheels, their new skill
is to keep a six-foot distance
from one another at all times. 



Vultures

Cylinders of warm air lift off
the reservoir, invisible
but for a vulture colony
riding thermals into the sky – 
wingspans in profile like chevrons,
they wheel upward, on the lookout
for a carcass to sustain them.



Predawn Ritual

The stovetop burner set to high,
its element starts to glow red
under a steel pot of water:
bubbles escape with a whisper
shifting into a muted roar
that quiets when lifted off heat
and is poured over ground coffee. 



Urban Tree Roots 

The sidewalk has a rise in it
by the base of a sycamore
where thick, shallow roots bulge the earth – 
an unexpected disruption
of pavement’s intended flatness,
as if the tree flexed its muscles
to tear apart a garment that restricts. 



Hawk on a Telephone Line

The buteo perched on a wire
spanning Central Expressway
this cloudy Sunday afternoon
is likely unaware that only
about a hundred years ago
the first telephone call happened
from San Francisco to New York.

A signal stirs inside the hawk – 
it spreads its wings and flies away
then lifts itself to soaring height.
What is beyond the horizon,
marvels in the next century? 
The distance between us distorts,
conversations wrap the planet.