Sun is mirror and you and I, we are
the ocean sounds lapping onto a beach of small
stones, or the concave shells that pierce
skin. Why’s the tide still in?!?
Whys spill out of mouths gone
numb, or learn to ignore creaky ligaments
w/ a fastidious sense of direction
and a task of manifestation. Imagine
we conjure chrysanthemum pollen and
lavender oils tickle when applied just
right, or better yet, bring the seagulls
and the orchards. Bring your face, reddened by wine.
II
The international gesture for madrone tree
looks like the sun found its way out
through the last day of summer to
restructure the earth, make it a planet
where we soak bones and soak again.
Drown the babies before they know
pain, or gulp Fat Tire or Anchor Steam,
a lesson in sailing the strait in the
winter ice (an old soul’s new wrinkle).
September is a month of huddling and
forgetting. All this from the seaside
spot where I was once pictured w/ little
Rebecca.
3:42P – 9.21.08
III
Forty-seven tomorrow, but
today and on Sundays, when the air
feels like one long last French kiss to
summer never come, instead the dragonflies
seek out the urge to make this wrinkle
called: “oxigized”, which is just another
word for: more testimony for her joie de vivre
more than madrones or the sea or
the way we make each other come so
hard, the way the rocks know where to
land, where eagles circle above and birds
skim the hair and nature from the
surface, lick our chlorinated skin
dry.
IV
Your words make the tears come, wrap
around my black backpack – a place aphids
should avoid. Someone left dogshit on
the bluff, and going over folds we’ve
seen before. The water brings its parade of
detritus, of nasty things a dog might eat,
or just a bald head under a black
stocking cap. So we postcard a Sunday
afternoon, we are scrubbed clean and
spit-shined, by waves, as only they can
this time of early chill and late blooms, of
pumpkins, and islands carved out of one wild
dream.
4:09P – 9.21.08
w/ Meredith A. Sedlachek