Young man shivers on the ground next to a bus bench | Casa de Oro, Southern California, 2006

Little red leaves
titter on the huff of
wind, then they cease

any unsteady
movement. Tipped to their cusp,
little red leaves

fill slowly
from his cuts.
When they cease

resembling any
sense of ‘cup’,
the little red leaves

open like poppies.
With one last half-puff
his wind ceased

cycling past tongue and teeth
to the popped balloon of lung,
and though little red left
his wound, it then ceased.


Zebulon Huset