DRY CRIK Journal

Ripening with time, I paint a face
that scorned the sun, that grinned
into the blaze of the San Joaquin

like Icarus from Crete. A daub of
grease between the gray smeared-in
the skin, remembering make-believe

I miss, mythologies I crave now,
before I leave this planet in revolt –
these displeased gods with clever

schemes of their own. Time, perhaps,
to listen to the Aztecs, Yokuts and
the Greeks, time to learn their songs.