Spring cleaning

It was eighty degrees in April,
calamities abounding on fractured plates,
like earthquakes
and the old lady
wearing a black tank top, her arms propped on her knees,
sits on a curb
outside the white medical office
with her frizzy white hair
clenched in her hands...
and she quakes quietly,
her skin ripples in the white noon light.
Mexican fan palms crackling in the white hot breeze
seem to say
just another day in paradise.
The pollen has fallen,
she could smell it in the air
while dripping salt water on the blacktop.




Image of painting by By Carl Heuser (1827-1892) (Bonhams) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.