My friend and I would ride our bikes up the long winding canyon road
to the Neutra house on the edge of Coyoteland where he lived with

and Israeli mom and Midwestern dad and then we’d pedal wisely on
huffing and laughing at the way our lungs took us to the edge of extinction

before we’d return to collapse in his driveway and glide our arms and
soiled hands toward the clear glass panels that shielded a bucolic atrium

and scarlet door from the mystery winds as if on the portico of paradise
but we wouldn’t die and when the old quiet breath came back and his sad

home lit up with wild 45s and clever appliances relegating us to the thrill
of being still thirteen and bored quickly by everything we prayed night

would become the sole howl of animals and its dark sky would consume
our beauty then forge that wilder body before Earth would choose to rest.