Aspen

no 

switch 

gas burner

 in a basement

steam engine fires up 

ancient geyser hot springs 

 sulfur pots with rusted algae.

Newsprint crumples, opens, 

thin dead branches that once 

held deciduous leaves of ash,

but mine have the cancer from

 burning the spores fly into stars, 

embeding themselves into beetles 

brown disease that plague forest

Where's the girl scout fire building

lighter fluid 

chemical cancer?

Tolene 

  encaustic painter

mixed dry pigments

 lead 

poison 

is a 

bitch

I slept in a loft on 

Industrial Street above 

 railroad ties where men 

huddled in blue plastic condos.

When they die of cold exposure, 

lost dollars they gathered begging 

on freeway off ramps on 

Popov vodka and crank.

Mayor plans to build 

forty houses at 

four hundred thousand per unit.

Reporters herald the plan.

What of the other eleven thousand 

on the street?

Luxury construction costs, 

 I do for a living. 

Why does no one question the price? 

Crescent moon cup waits for rain

she's the yin to the mountain 

below he turns the other way

I'm afraid to go out 

the bolted

door at night

even if I'm out of firewood

plan ahead or use down comforters

layer many over in case 

when bad guys

come they 

cannot shoot 

through the

padding

Aspen trees are a grove of one 

connected like railroad ties.

Caroline Gerardo ©  Aspen Poem