by David Woo

    Yellow-oatmeal flowers of the windmill palms

    like brains lashed¹ to fans-

    even they think of cool paradise，

    Not this sterile² air-conditioned chill

    or the Arizona hell in which they sway becomingly.

    Every time I return to Phoenix³ I see these palms

    as a child's height marks on a kitchen wall，

    taller now than the yuccas they were planted with，

    taller than the Texas sage⁴ trimmed

    to a perfect gray-green globe with pointillist

    lavender blooms， taller than I，

    who stopped growing years ago and commenced instead

    my slow， almost imperceptible slouch

    to my parents' old age：

    Father's painful bend- really a bending of a bend-

    to pick up the paper at the end of the sidewalk；

    Mother， just released from Good Samaritan，

    curled sideways on a sofa watching the soaps，

    an unwanted tear inching down

    at the plight⁵ of some hapless Hilary or Tiffany.

    How she'd rail against television as a waste of time！

    Now， with one arthritis-mangled hand，

    she aims the remote control at the set

    and flicks⁶ it off in triumph， turning to me

    as I turn to the trees framed in the Arcadia door.

    Her smile of affection melts into the back of my head，

    a throb⁷ that presses me forward，

    hand pressed to glass. I feel the desert heat

    and see the beautiful shudders⁸ of the palms in the yard

    and wonder why I despised this place so，

    why I moved from city to temperate⁹ city， anywhere

    without palms and cactus¹⁰ trees.

    I found no paradise， as my parents know，

    but neither did they， with their eager sprinklers

    and scrawny desert plants pumped up to artificial splendor¹¹，

    and their lives sighing away， exhaling¹² slowly，

    the man and woman

    who teach me now as they could not before

    to prefer real hell to any imaginary paradise.

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