Alvin Knox

One Day on the Freeway

Like a dream to the alarm clock.
Like a nitrous revelation.
Like when you pass a cop
by the side of the road
and unslouch yourself without thinking.
A little change in perspective
when you weren’t paying attention.
You think, God, I could have died
back there and not noticed,
entered some parallel universe
more like this one than heaven.
But the exits are the same
and the wife’s car is in the driveway
when you pull in, the kids are waving
at the window. You get out
without looking in the wing mirror,
wipe your forehead
with the back of your hand.

At the Fountain Park

Today, children—younger, older,
black, white, and shades between—
run through the spray and spouting jets,
an impromptu game of tag with each other
and the randomly shifting streams.
They have tossed their shoes
around the fountain’s base to form
makeshift garlands of green, yellow,
red and blue. The fountain likes this.
Today, the central, vertical stream rises
one inch higher than its typical fourteen feet.
I have read the plaque on the fountain’s base.
The children, some in swimsuits, some
in clothes their parents forgot would get wet,
cavort in rings around the fountain, laughing,
except for one little girl who has stopped dead,
silent, gazing into the sky, into the invisible.
Today, she is the chosen one, the magic one
in the perfect place to see the fountain play with the sun.

© 2016   Alvin Knox   All Rights Reserved