on the banks of the American River

after the storms
he came out swinging 
cutting chips off a hackberry with his axe
to feed the smoky fire

the whole park deluged. camp sites underwater
tents ripped up off their moorings

the sky turned orange 
all his strength in his arms
he came out swinging for 
the comrades

#katyamills

in.som.nia

the streets of sacramento changing

new apartment buildings

restaurants and shops

 

my back was achin i

could not get to sleep

 

ten years ago was an empty

warehouse waitin to be

furnished

 

now shes all grown up like

the cost of living

getting high

 

someone who could not believe

pushed out into the country

ghost.writer

the clock struck five. the sun was eye level and had turned the bridge gold. i was in a fight for my life. i ran as fast as i could. he was standing there trying to look bored, a blade taped to his ankle, roll of cash in his pocket. just in time. i had my tights on beneath a canvas jacket. we walked along the homeless encampment with its tents and bicycle parts and indigents sitting around a smoking fire. i won’t take nothing if you’re not done yet. i told him i was. i had spent the last four weeks chained to a desk writing several thousand words a day. i pulled the manuscript out from under my jacket. he tried to stare at the cracks in the sidewalk because he didn’t want me to see his eyes light up. i took the money and bought myself a room for a week at the Citizen. i asked for a window to the park so i could look down upon the high fountain surrounded by benches…the cafe. Cesar Chavez had his back to me. i remembered when i was down and out, too. i situated my desk just so. it wouldn’t take long to tell the honest truth.

emergenc.y

my thoughts spoke for themselves my
feelings could scarcely be
contained

any time of triumph of the spirit
appeared

rather sloppy and
unsophisticated

if yesterday was october

we rode on out to see your cousins down along the river road, into the delta and god was it beautiful, America. dazzling on an autumn afternoon. we paid respects to your mom along the way. the sun would leave the cemetery sky red hot on its descent in the west. i never knew your father was an artist until you showed me his studio deep in the lot, behind the garage. there was a portrait of a beautiful woman on the easel, maybe the beloved in the beloved years? 94 now he lives with sophia the cavalier.

back to wood floors. they are pulling up the carpets now. the orange tree what with its lime hybrid. beginning to bear fruit. we shared baked beans and fried chicken and i listened to his story of coming to this country, up from Mexico, a teenager hoping on some work and a couple hundred dollars to take home. an older man convinced him to hop the freight train and go north to Indio. from there they decided on Sacramento. the man taught him if you dress up a little you can get work easy. he doesn’t know what became of his friend, who got drunk one night and disappeared. that was three quarters of a century ago. old sacramento was a community of migrants.

i wonder about the spirit and where it travels when somebody is no longer around? your dad is a good man. what a life. he’s been through it. and he still gets up and out into the orchard for it. working for more at ninety-four.

fullness

drink more of

water and

 breath and prayer

august.sacramento

the sky was a peach at sunset and fire at dawn and we ate lemon ice and prayed that the city’s electrical grid would hold up. the number of homeless had risen and not all could not be housed. caring citizens were combining forces and giving away tents on the weekend. others were cold complaining to cops and assemblymen: get these sorry-ass derelicts off of my street!

tower bridge

ghost. tower bridge

Several minutes before midnight we were passing through letters and numbers of roads. The harvest had grown thin with the moon, and the night was lit in pockets by neon-spelled vacancies between empty lots and service stations on the main thoroughfare. The fires of hell had been subdued by the fighters, and left a tinge of smoke to permeate the valley air. I hugged my sweatshirt close and listened to the engine of the truck as you brought her to speed. The tower bridge was in sight now, outlined by spotlights facing up to the sky. The river swirled quiet below in the dark, turning and churning and yearning for sea. We could not help but seeing a figure, taller than life and draped in unknown layers of cloth, standing in the middle of the street at the entrance to the bridge.  I looked at you and you looked at me. A chill came across our engines, as we thundered on by in the lowest of gears. The figure stood perfectly still. I tried to see who it might be and found myself looking into a void with no face and no name, and no resonance of life, none whatsoever! We both knew instinctively after passing, not to look back. I looked down at the body of water and saw some reflections of light in the water. The bridge underneath spoke out against the weight of us… even they! even they!Even they, more alive than the ghost!

sorry division

the old sound was nothing like the new sound, and the new sound nothing like that which would replace it, but when the music was at its level best, well, you could tell the old lived inside the new,  a candle cased in glass, where all the moths gathered, and world reflections wide came to a collective point, we became one again you and me, before the flame flickered and the wick succumbed, gave way to the sorry division.

real unreal by katya

belly

belly full of life

dear magpie. you told me of the seals and why they come up river all the many miles to Sacramento from the San Francisco Bay sometimes, to feed on spawning salmon in the autumn. i ask you: the spawning fish are dying, are they not? coming up river and back home to die where they were born?

yes, you said.
then why? dear magpie, why not let the salmon swim home and die in peace?

the seals, they are not interested in the carcass of a dying fish. what they do as they swim upstream, diving underwater for several meters at a time, dark and slick, wet coats shining in the sunlight; what they do is find the belly full of life, and sink the teeth in there.

midtown patterns by k