Day 15
Beach Thief
Clearly
there is a sign
large print
red letters
I read
unlawful
to remove
rocks (sand too)
from this beach
but
these
are my rocks
on my beach
the beach
where I
grew
learned
everything I need now
perfect
all by myself,
alone
fragrant ocean calling, sand beneath me
sun on my face, salt on my tongue
this rock in my palm, this sift of sand in my shoes
this beach in every heartbeat
in the last heartbeat
I will ever hear
tide going
out.
Day 16
from her parents. All her life this
was the answer to every request.
Her mother pinched the budget to buy material
for school clothes. She sewed for them,
Dad socked away quarters from overtime
for his small Christmas shopping,
each present a treasure.
things not afforded, an ache
like deep sweet water
building, rising in her.
at TJ Maxx, the Van Gogh pen at Levenger
all out of her reach. I can’t afford it.
But what of the beach on a cloudy day,
or blue jays at the feeder, or the sultry snore
of her husband beside her, his hand
on her thigh as they drift off
to deep sweet water of dreams.
Day 17
Rainy Passage
Stop.
Go.
Stop. Go.
Moose
no rod, cone eyes
no flares, no
orange triangles.
Imagine woods
without Moosba,
soft sounds of rain-
hopping frogs.
Moose. Frogs.
Headlights. Rain.
Stop. Go. Stop.
Time.
Day 18
Quiet
not the absence of noise —
still water not still
soft wind moves like water,
makes itself known
without loudness.
A boisterous child asleep
in his cot, not calm, suspended
in time, stopped mid-burst,
but not absent his noise, his clatter.
In a bar, in the midst of noisy
band, screeching amp, foot stomped
bluster, one molecule of quiet
left behind. It waits for you
in the alleyway; find it
in the huddle of rough sleepers,
a breath that stopped an hour ago
from cold and hunger, that roars
from every cardboard box and doorway.
Quiet. Noise. Noise that quiets. Quits.
Day 19
The sun
lifts itself on muscled arms
stretches its slow smile
over the sea. Last night a storm
creased the sky, the shore
with electric lashings, ozone coating
the air. Ships groaned at their moorings,
waited for calm. Before dawn, a bird
(could’ve been a gull) called the fog
to settle and make peace with the sea.
The Bible says He stretched out his arm
and the sea obeyed. If an arm can calm
the waves, a gull make peace, then sound
a horn, beat a drum, and be glad in all of it.
Day 20
7th grade self
hair permed at the kitchen sink,
socks slipping into the heels
of size too big saddle shoes,
plaid skirt hiked up
at the waistband one block
from school, books
clad in brown paper bags.
Just be yourself. Only who
is that girl? Peer into the mirror
this morning, no clue. Prayed
all night someone would come along
and tell you the rules to the game —
so far only jeers at your PB & J
sandwich, your frizzed up hair,
your sloshy socks. Hours go, no
one says a word to you, no one
says this year is gonna be so much fun.
The next two years erase themselves,
and all you remember is 8th Grade
Graduation, blinking into the sunlight
as your name is called, and the only two
who clap for you have to love you anyway.
Slow forward...
A blur. A slow cooked life — and a poem.
Day 21
Memento Mori
Snap. Shutter. Flip
open, close. There
you are: freeze-framed
belovèd, mother,
daughter, poet, enemy.
Snap. Shutter. Eye.
All-seeing
indiscriminate, brutal.
Click. Over.
Not lost, not erased. Click.
In your head a moment, taken
on film, on line, on tap.
There it is:
snapped — frozen
landscape of childhood,
adultery, death-bed confession.
Memento Mori — life sliced
into pieces for frames,
minutiae of days, nights,
wishes & failures. Mutable
snaps and clicks, relentless time.
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