Daniel Luévano

A Gong

Body is the rut mind spins in.
On Saturday, my sickest day in the chemotherapy cycle,
my belly shredded from the ordinary
reek of closets and pantries,
I am almost asleep when the booming
car stereo props me back into nausea
as my neighbor soaps up his wife's car. I'd laugh but--
--and I hear our trees blow off their soft tangles

over whirlygigging yard dogs, his super sub-bass
making a gong of us all.
I allow myself this lullaby
though my bones are sinking in mud
and I begin talking to God
as if He were a retired leftist physician, unconvinced
sickness rests in the body--
Is it true our baby is a thought

quickly collecting inside her? Give the bumming
neighbors their remake of Southern California
Give mountains sun-striated to the flattened souls of the prairie

Give any that apply
their little radius of joy
Give the failing
brochures of paradise as a beach--
I'll take this child to mean
we share life with whom might share it with us.
Lend the violence in my guts the peace
birds find just outside our yard--