Sand fleas leap the sunset where Carmaggeden occupies the freeway.
On the muddy banks of the Mississippi, we slip mickeys to bums on benches.
Pop and I: waxing life in the freight yard, where barley stinks like wet dog food,
And where we tag dumpsters, stare up at the Arch, that gleaming frown, and ask
“Who am I to you now?”
We drive an old Camry, rattling up drug highway 57, looking for gold with no rainbow.
Outside a Lemon Drop store in Boulder, Colorado, we sail paper planes in cold air.
Up to the Flat Irons we go: making snow pies, shelling shrimp, feeding geese, getting bit,
Calling it family, a life—who knows where it goes?
Bryce Berkowitz’s poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Passages North, Oyez Review, Evansville Review, Tule Review, among other publications. He has a BA in Creative Writing from Columbia College Chicago. He currently lives in West Virginia.
