“domesticus tranquilis”

by John Dorroh

I like towns whose streets are named for trees -

Elm, Olive, Cypress, their canopies spreading

tender clutch above the rooftops 

of homes that pulse with life: sleepy drivers

leaving protected carports before the sun infuses

its muted light through uncurtained windows.

Robust Colombian wafting through thumb-sized

holes in neglected corners that someone forgot to patch 

again last summer. The silent stuffed cheeks of the gray mouse

who just left her evidence in a torn bag of snacks,

potato chip crumbs strewn throughout the dresser drawer.

Squirrels tight-rope skidding across sagging utility lines

like gravity doesn’t matter. And teenagers waking up

like zombies in tattered, smelly nests from wee-hour escapades, 

praying it’s the weekend with a car of their own.

I like to drive down tree-lined streets and make-believe

that I am one of them, just for a day, looking up 

into naked branches at a gray-white sky, lifting my foot off the gas,

waiting for the fog to lift, for the other foot to drop.

It always does.

I like the way that some of them are labeled to let you know

what it is, its genus and species, always in Italics 

since everyone speaks Latin these days. Acer rubrum,

Quercus rubra, Picea pungens. It is paramount to be able

to classify things and put them in their places. Like leaves.

It gives us some sort of short-term power, a way to complicate

the uncomplicated. 

I like how the man on Sycamore Street is always grilling.

Except early in the morning when he’s probably at the market

selecting his meat of the day. The trees above his house 

are always yellow in the summer and are the first to fall

in August. Maybe they can’t breathe.

And when I go into the city it makes me sad to see trees

lined up against glass-and-chrome buildings, forced to grow

in chemical soil, where noise from the interstate never stops. 

They miss the rooftops and dogs that bark down the street in the fog, 

the sounds of the school bus opening its hungry mouth to swallow

children until 3 o’clock when once again it spits them out

at 254 Oak Avenue.

John Dorroh has never fallen into an active volcano or caught a hummingbird. However, he managed to bake bread with Austrian monks and drink a healthy portion of their beer. Two of his poems were nominated for Best of the Net. Others appeared in journals such as Feral, River Heron, and Selcouth Station. His first chapbook comes out in 2022.