On sleepless nights
I circumvent the jack-hammers,
the asphalt rollers – huge drums
that press and level hot black gum.
Dodge the strobes
that flash atop A-frames,
run past pop-up sprinklers
and curtained rectangles of light.
Inhale diesel fumes
at the edge of the city
where bulldozers are starting up.
Jog this fogless morning
until a trail is reached
that ascends the foothill’s summit –
from where the valley is surveyed
as if I were an explorer.
These runs are getting harder
with my worn-out spine –
a rusted bicycle chain
that won’t straighten out.
A van the color of nopal
raises dust, cresting the rise,
and something says they’re not coming
to bring me water.
Dennis Cummings lives in Poway, CA. He has lived in San Diego County all his life and has worked with flower growers there for more than four decades. He studied creative writing at San Diego State for a while during the early seventies. His poems appear or are forthcoming in Watershed, Barnstorm, The Baltimore Review, Bicoastal Review and others.
