Rick Mullin
Oak Park
I drove alone through Oak Park, Illinois,
with something vague and urgent on my mind.
The sun was setting. First I saw the boy
who scampered down a shingled roof. Behind
the house a row of hemlocks swayed in waves.
Next door I saw a girl who step-danced fast
from gable down to gutter. “She behaves
in miracles,” I thought as I drove past.
Preoccupied, a little shocked (and dreaming
at the wheel), I couldn’t help them down.
I didn’t stop the car. I heard no screaming
parent as I drove across a town
of barefoot infant acrobats on roofs
of slate with oak leaves saddled in the grooves.
[ Published in the chapbook Aquinas Flinched, Modern Metrics, 2008 ]
Rick Mullin is a business journalist and painter whose poetry has appeared in print and online journals including The New Formalist, Relief, Umbrella, The Shit Creek Review, and 14 by 14. His chapbook Aquinas Flinched ( Modern Metrics) was published this year. He lives in northern New Jersey.
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