1
The car lurches forward on the 101, red snake
traffic through downtown. My father
doesn’t drive anymore, but he conjured this city,
my labyrinth, our treasure—this is his town.
A few neon signs blink on, each a glyph
of light, and we’re in the early dark
November, 1960. He’s at the wheel
driving east, me riding shotgun, truck
unloaded in Cudahy, Commerce, Norwalk,
one more stop in Boyle Heights, and cruise
the Golden State all the way home.
Huggy Boy on the radio, darkness settling
over the Marlboro Man lifting a cigarette
to his handsome lips, over Jesus Saves
across an entire rooftop, each letter blazing,
Time to Bowl in aqua, Carlin Room in flowing
gold, the Four-level Interchange coming up,
Smart Women Cook with Gas, Manny, Moe, or
Jack stands tall, heavy curved Aladdin brow,
muscles bulging from his polo—never could
tell the Pep Boys apart—our fools’ paradise all
around us, red-winged horse over the Mobil
station, Wiltern Theater green as sea glass,
spotlights angling off like egrets. My father’s
hands, work-thickened, curve the wheel,
scattering of dark hair across the back
of his palms, thumbnail bruised black,
salt tang of sweat—the way I love the world
is not separate from the way I love my father,
not separate from darkness sifting down,
nightdust tingeing what’s left of the sky.
Father you no longer drive and we’ll be
passing Hyperion soon. Do you remember?
We’re trying to read every message
written in light—a mermaid in a martini
glass, a boy king, two cherries on a single
stem spelled out in cylinders of fire,
and these lights prove us, crawling home
through Silverlake, waiting for our favorite—
rats running the wall of Western Exterminators.
Death is a blind man in a top coat
hefting a sledgehammer, mallet descending,
but rats are pure mystery, offering themselves,
bright knowing eyes, flick of pink noses—
the hammer falls. Of endless rats, the world
is made, each one a fragment light passes
through, kindling form to form, dying,
dead, gone—and back in the dream
running again before we know it.
We take it all in and drive on.