He put a halter
on his nouns
and rode them
across the page
clip clop
clip clop
clip clop
it's no wonder
his listeners
left with
saddle sores.
PORTRAIT AT FRANK'S PLACE
Spare portrait room, open bay windows:
kids in row house across street
chatter with dad, evangelists at end
of block exhort Latino bystanders
to embrace Jesus next to tables
stocked with Marxist tracts. Here
you and I, friends in college,
roommates twice in Austin, brothers
for thirty years to each other's
brothers, talk again of what we
know and do not know, your hand
dipping brush in water and paint,
tricking light on thick paper
to take shape and heft of human
form, on through a final round
of flickering strokes, and then
with my wife and son we drive
across the bay to Buddy's home,
sun disappearing out beyond
Muir Woods, feasting on walls
bearing your paintings and on
your brother's grilled communion.
