In the meanderings of my backyard,

I set a glass of ice water on the muddled glass table

Spreckled with rainspots and a splinch more than the grain of salt I asked for.

I ready my position on my side

Opposite the jasmine curled against the fence,

And I grip the football.

My toss isn’t that great and I know it.

In the aroma of barbeque,

I think it is a cloud I must surpass

I sprint up the barren hill to the fence between us and the rest of the world.

It cleavers some sacred line from the canyon

I gulp in air from highway cars close and distant enough to be the sun,

If the sun shifted beyond itself every second or so.

It too is shrouded in haze,

So I look down from my piece of the world

At the scattered gopher holes

And wonder if the way my father sets the hose to seep from below feels like rainspots.

If it might be like how I knock over my glass of water.