Santa Ana

Posted on February 10, 2004 in Poems Weather

I was suffocating

so I opened the window a slit

no larger than a cat’s lit pupil.

The pollen barrage shouted its whisper

and wrecked the sleep wrecked by stuffiness.

Half a xanax, two benadryl plus a nap later

my dentist cleaned my porcelain teeth

until the gums puffed up. The blood

wafted down the incisors’ slot canyons.