sw00528ut-11.2poems

The Undulant Trees


 [ Beneath this note are two poems concerning incidents which
    took place several years apart, and about which I am only
    partially aware.  Both sets of incidents were in mobile home
    (mo-ho) communities.  To my knowledge the events in the
    first mo-ho community do not relate to those in the second. ]



  Mo-Ho Community 1's Story


 That quiet day
 as I walked toward where
 the mailboxes were/

 on the patio of 
 the long brown mo-ho
 two young tall blacks
 held a shorter black
 upside down.

 At the patio's far end,
 seated on a chair,
 was a white teen who'd been
 a neighbor of ours.

 Though I didn't count them,
 there were in all
 about seven young blacks,
 one of whom was
 the group's sentinel;

 but
 no one else
 was in sight,
 and I was just
 passing by.


 ~


  Mo-Ho Community 2's Story


 1

 On a day I had a need to
 speak with the manager/
 two tall slender guys,
 one with a basketball,
 were waiting for something
 near the office.
 The basketball guy
 seemed half black half white,
 and the other seemed nearly
 all white.
 I learned they were going to be
 living in a mo-ho
 toward the end of the street
 which ran north
 from the mailboxes.


 2

 A month or so later,
 just after I'd 
 gotten my mail,
 a teen black whom I
 had once met and
 briefly spoken with
 and came to know/
 some things about,
 was heading to
 the corner mo-ho
 across the street
 where a friend of his lived.
 He paid no attention to me;
 and I, curious, 
 decided to delay
 my walk home.
 Once he'd/ alerted his friend,
 he quickly strode
 back to his place,
 which was one or two
 mo-ho's north of where
 the new guys lived.
 As he turned
 off the street
 into his yard,
 he lowered his jeans
 so far
 they nearly slid
 to the bottoms of
 his yellow/brown boxers.
 Then I saw that block distant
 another young black/
 facing me.
 For a moment we
 scanned each other,
 and I made/ no move toward him.


 3

 About two months
 (or so it seemed)
 after that/
 while I was again conversing
 with the manager,
 I was told 
 the two young guys had
 moved,
 and had defaulted
 on their lease.
 It was either that day
 or several days later
 Irevealed to the manager
 what I suspected had occurred,
 though I knew what I knew
 proved nothing.


 4

 What I did know was that
 the central figure
 was a student at a high school
 I had twice been in
 because of tropical storms.
 One evening, while online,
 I went to that school's web site
 and did some fruitless searching,
 but found an error on its home page.
 Early/ on another day when I was
 by the office/
 I had a chance to speak with
 that school's student
 about whom I knew
 some things,
 and I did speak with him.
 I told him of the error
 on his school's home page.




-
Little Pieces


Brian A. J. Salchert