The sirens scream, and I am drowned
by Los Angeles memories—
a flood of people
hunters, prowling rapists,
drive-by babies
bleeding in cradles,
kids hop-scotching Hollywood
stars, barbed-wire high schools
with penitentiary views,
mothers sleeping
under overpasses, drinking
freeway smog while the night
halo rises. I sink down below
into the pass, the canyon, the valley,
as tumbleweeds snag
on marooned car hulls
and bonfire piers are whipped
by Devil Winds.
There is no river here, I remind myself,
no reason to fear cavitation,
no crossing boatman,
only a cemented trickle
tattooed by graffiti bridges,
turbines stealing snowmelt, pushing
it over snared bodies. Only time locks
dribbling out showers, dams anchoring
drinking fountains. The Queen
of the Angels may mourn
the Tujunga watershed
and Santa Ana sucker,
but I fear a storm
on the mountain, drowning
in a shimmering current
backwater that screams my name.

– J.W. Young