Were this a photograph the bluejays would 
be baptized
 
                                      arpeggios in and out
of the sprinkler
 
                                      sun bleaching blouses, dungarees
 
in the back yard where I turned this many in ’58
 
                        my mother leaning from the window with a handful of underwear
 
Listen long enough
you can hear my sisters cleaning house
 
                                      with a bucket of bleach
 
see an old gown
                                      leaving for church
 
wet eraser tapping a page
 
               of black subtraction
                                      hear water running in a tub
 
until August turns to smoke

~~~

Lenny DellaRocca is founder and co-publisher of South Florida Poetry Journal-SoFloPoJo-www.southfloridapoetryjournal.com  His latest collection is Festival of Dangerous Ideas (Unsolicited Press, 2019).

His chapbook, Things I See in the Fire is winner of the Yellow Jacket Press Chapbook Contest 2017. He has work forthcoming in The Rumpus, The Meadow and The Lotus-Eater. Other poems have appeared in Nimrod, Seattle Review, Fairy Tale Review and other journals.