Amy Lerman

High in the Air

Last night on the news, I watched a building
collapse, twelve condominium floors only blocks
away from where I grew up. I recognized the street,
some hibiscus bushes, palm fronds swaying
in the air’s debris mixed with ocean current, all
of it wafting through the screen, humidifying
my hair, sweating my back to its bottom,
my five-year-old toes brushing a fallen coconut’s
husk in the carpet grass. Behind me

Daddy folds a peace sign pool towel over
his ten-speed’s bar, it’s plenty big,
and seats me on it, so the two of us
can ride the quiet Sunday streets, past
the corner house tented for termites,
over the Surprise Lake bridge where
Daddy lifts from his seat to pump
the pedals harder, and I’m sure his head
will touch a cloud he is so high in the air.
When we coast fast, I like watching his feet
free above the pedals and pretend we’re flying
over the stop sign, my elementary school’s
playground, the towel our magic carpet
my sweaty hands cling to in the morning’s
yellow light.

You Can Take the Girl Out

When we transferred here, no neighbors offered
cookies or recommended handymen, pigeons just
roamed our neighborhood’s apocalyptic-looking
streets, the four, sweating movers our only companions
that first day, our lawn a found-art installation
of empty, plastic bottles, while we listened for
young voices encouraging each other to race
to the stop sign, our own inside years silent
of such sounds.

Ten summers later, I still open the front door to
triple-digit days, hot wind deviling up dust mixed
with creosote, the unnatural quiet. I look both ways
as if I’m going to cross the street, and I remember
the garage, beyond its burning, aluminum shield,
perhaps buried under torn window screens we’ve always
stored, the Dorothy-inspired picnic basket you gifted
when I told you I missed summer, my favorite part
of Kansas growing up, fresh tomatoes and radishes
with salt, maybe a little butter, sun tea brewed
from the front porch, freshly-laundered sheets swaying
the clothesline and scenting our backyard where we
spread the blanket.

When you get home from work tonight, I’ll be holding
that basket, maybe I’ll put some crackers or beer inside,
a stuffed, Toto dog, soft and furry, peering out its top,
that dog, such a survivor, could probably handle this heat,
this desolation. When you suggest we move toward
the couch, that maybe I should release, your words soft
and wispy, my elbow will stiffen, I might grab duct tape
or Gorilla Glue, one of those extra-large, Costco bag
ties, just know that no matter how much I will sweat
or redden under the wicker’s hardness, my feet
will be rowed in sunflowers swinging east to west
throughout the day, their only turning back at night,
when they can no longer follow the sun’s rays.

Amy Lerman was born and raised on Miami Beach, moved to the Midwest for many years, and now lives with her husband and very spoiled cats in the Arizona desert, so all three landscapes figure prominently into her writing. She is residential English Faculty at Mesa Community College, and her poems have appeared in or are forthcoming in Stonecoast Review, Rattle, Slippery Elm, and other publications. Her poem, “Why Is It?” was the inaugural winner of the Art Young Memorial Award for Poetry.