Lisa Dominguez Abraham

Good Intentions

i promised myself a better self
than i could make & i will not forgive
                                   —“After Vallejo” by A.B. Spellman

At 5:00 a.m. Arthur Sze must be rising, brewing green tea,
               then beginning to type his dream of mule deer

grazing the chaparral and also wind turbines
               slicing songbirds into puffs of feathers.

Farther west I page through Sight Lines,
               grateful for insomnia and San Francisco’s

light-polluted sky, how they cocoon me
               in a pre-dawn buzz where I can cycle through

my own intentions. Many turned out well,
               but failures haunt me: the apricot tree I planted,

nurtured, and fed, gathering its honeyed fruit
               until the branches began to split, oozing sap.

The fault was mine. I’d tended it the way
               I’d been taught, pruning in its dormant season,

the right season for every stone-fruit tree
               except the apricot. I learned too late and

sadly, I’m not alone. Even at this hour
               my living room hums with the sound of

commute traffic just over the hill, bottle-necked
               before the San Rafael Bridge

as gardeners and house cleaners idle
               in pickups and vans, spewing exhaust into

their own neighborhoods as they inch toward
               the rich side of the bay. Their commute

was quicker before road work
               that left just two car lanes, saving

the third for bicycles. To be fair,
               an occasional cyclist does pedal by

in his dedicated lane, believing
               that with each muscled downstroke

he’s helping the collective, his eyes watering
               in the chill wind, droplets feathering in his wake.

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Lisa Dominguez Abraham’s Mata Hari Blows a Kiss won the Swan Scythe Chapbook Contest, and her book Coyote Logic was published by Blue Oak Press. More of her work has appeared in journals such as Puerto del Sol and The Southern Review, and, most recently in Elysium Review. She is grateful to live in Richmond, California near her large, extended family.