LA Metro Road Atlas
Descend the pigeons,
dip into the concrete river,
the hope for rain
that caught the Pineapple Express,*
one week gone.
Risen, feathers
silhouette white
against new snow on the mountains
far-off like paintings hung in the sky.
So, an auntie in the valley
keeps Christmas
snowflakes twinkling
above February begonias.
Tourists wave balloons
down the boulevard.
A man leads his friend with a cane
back to his coffee shop seat.
With worn-out clothes,
they've long since lost the way
to the usual on-ramp.
He tells his friend about palm trees outside
that dot the way to Disney,
so many
they are a forest line.
The palms punch
the hazy sky
all over the city…
of Angels,
outside the cathedral,
in candlelight, a family kneels on concrete.
Their baby's hair wisps like incense smoke,
they pray at the shrine
to Our Lady of Guadalupe.
She's at the plaza edge
to watch over the 101
and the freeway hum whispers holy,
the cars circle like rosary beads.
* During a Pineapple Express, an atmospheric river forms over Hawaii and carries heavy rain to the West Coast.
Sherry Weaver Smith searches for poems in graveyards, historical society museums, and on well-worn footpaths. Her poems have been published in the California Quarterly; The Heron’s Nest; The Seventh Quarry; the Origami Poems Project; Panorama, the Journal of Travel, Place, and Nature (Cities Edition); and the Arizona Literary Magazine. She has an M.Phil. from the University of Oxford and a B.A. from Duke University.
Amethyst Review 