by Theodore Rycroft

Gordo calls me over to draw
on his driveway with chalk
beside his father’s monster truck.
Inside his dogs run around and bark.
 
When the ice cream truck comes, 
we line up like waiting room patients
bouncing from side to side,
the black asphalt singing our bare feet.
 
Gordo’s sister is quiet, his mother is quiet;
I think his father beats them.
His father brings out his lawn chair
and watches my mother wash our car.
 
I remember the sun setting on the right
as if part of a daily parade across our block.
The red and orange and yellow
would fade into purple and blue
 
as the cool desert wind would blow,
the crickets humming a quiet melody.
Once my father found a scorpion in the bathroom
and killed it with his brown leather sandal.