Coming back from Peter's

This is Apollo's cart when it disappears under the horizon
A sled taking us through darkened streets
An electronic voice chiming out the names
A dozen club kids bombed out of their minds

At 2:45 a.m. the streets are slush, the driver's in shorts,
Dispassionate, holds no grimace or grin, and
Bears the bier with the kids in repose
Slumped deep in their seats

The grass

Was there ever a time when the days seemed to last forever, in a good way, and the grass underfoot was soft Bermuda in the yard and the twilight stretched long past it had any right to, pumpkin orange then fiery red before slipping into navy blues and black? When the whirr of the lawnmower kept up long past dark, dad having started at sundown because it was cooler then despite the mosquitoes, and you heard it go round and round the house like a carousel? It got louder as it came toward your window, then quieter again, then louder as he turned at the row's edge and came back. Wait. Wait for the yard to be finished, you. He's going to be done soon. Listen for the next part. I know it's long past dinner time, when you came inside, being done with play, and he headed out. But listen. The lawnmower gets wheeled into the garage, past the creaky fence gate, through the loud garage side door, and now you can hear him pull the garden hose off the spool hanging on the fence. He drags it past the gutter pipe coming down from the roof which resonates like an organ bellows, picks out the right spot for the sprinkler head and stakes it into the ground. Now he comes back to the valve by the master bedroom, turns the creaky old valve, and the water encircles the house, comes in from somewhere out there, ramps up in noise, then starts the noise chk-chk-chk! Chka-chka-chka. Chk-chk-chk! That's the sound you'll fall asleep to more times than you can remember. Halfway through the sprinkler arc the water hits your window, reminds you of a car wash and you imagine it's cleaning your window of that Texas dust that gets stuck to it in the summertime, and you fall deeper and wonder how late your dad must stay up to turn off the water after the ground and good grass get their soaks. When was that? I wish you'd written down the date. It all seems like a fiction now.