A poem for National Poetry Month

O.C. CAN U C?
by Wendy Esterás

In the Irvine rhyme scheme, there’s no time
for dreaming, no room for treasonous themes
like looking, seeing, being. No one sits still
anymore. We’ll do three things at once
and they’re bound to be frivolous:
cruising the boulevards, texting on cell phones,
scanning the skies for cumulous threats
to freshly washed S.U.V.s.
But on the horizon, a forest beckons.
Perfect ferns and foreign palms feign greening
where oak and sycamore rise up speaking
a canyon’s cadence. Here, as skunks and
bees and bobcats scuttle among stones,
a creek freezes time in basketvine stanzas.



(Previously published as “Change For a Time.” Spring 2004: 8 in Booyah!