Map Spies

California pulls me from the oven each winter,
Like a berry pie with a burnt crust
That wants a sugar coating when it cools down.

Lush and moist and cool, my garden celebrates
with crowds of leaves and blooming yellows,
Arbutilon flames, moss on pots, roses.

Tubbed and scrubbed and boiled,
I’m part of the view, like fences and dog shit on the deck.
Stripped of that which hides my mortal wounds.

Snapped, perhaps, by helicopters in the sky above,
The ones that find the crime below, or
Evening news hawks circling with relentless need.

Or Google map spies snapping updates for our Web:
In my case, trees and long-gone lawns no longer here to mow,
Obsolete striations, layers covered up beneath the richness.

While rotting bones of Native Ancients lie beneath,
The ones that starved at nearby missions,
Dirty spadesful, shovels cover as we build tomorrow .

Now the archeology of shame exists forever:
Map spies cannot cover up the lies
Within my pleasant winter garden’s skin.