Albert Garcia

Albert Garcia is the author of three collections of poetry: Rainshadow (Copper Beech Press, 1996), Skunk Talk (Bear Starr Press, 2005), and A Meal Like That (Brick Road Poetry Press, 2015). A former professor and dean at Sacramento Community College, Garcia lives in Wilton, California.

August Morning

It’s ripe, the melon

by our sink. Yellow,

bee-bitten, soft, it perfumes

the house too sweetly.

At five I wake, the air

mournful in its quiet.

My wife’s eyes swim calmly

under their lids, her mouth and jaw

relaxed, different.

What is happening in the silence

of this house? Curtains

hang heavily from their rods.

Ficus leaves tremble

at my footsteps. Yet

the colors outside are perfect—

orange geranium, blue lobelia.

I wander from room to room

like a man in a museum:

wife, children, books, flowers,

melon. Such still air. Soon

the mid-morning breeze will float in

like tepid water, then hot.

How do I start this day,

I who am unsure

of how my life has happened

or how to proceed

amid this warm and steady sweetness?

— Albert Garcia