Spring Memories

written Spring 1998
for M.A.

Unsigned letter found under a pillow

This letter is pointless,
we speak everyday

but
I wanted to tell you,
without having to tell you,

I'm afriad you'll be
in my dreams tonight.

It always happens,
recurring nightmare,
I dream of someone and
POOF!

they disappear,
just like flowers

at a cheap magician's
last performance.

Imagining you have disappeared
from my sight,

like a hummingbird
after the first frost,
makes me shiver.

I think I would miss
that freckle on your lip

and the way you smell
the crook of my neck
when I'm cooking.

This letter can't say
anything you haven't
already heard my hands

say when they
run across your eyebrow
and laugh.

I keep wondering if
you are an illusion,

a fun house reflection
that will befuddle the fingertips
when they reach out
to touch you.

You always
surprise me --

calling when I
least expect;

standing in the doorway
in the exact moment
I'm thinking of you;

by not being
the immature
football player

I was afraid you might be.

I don't like sleeping
alone anymore.

It's comforting to know
the face I wake up to
mid-sleep

is flesh,
and not the reflected
remnants of a dream.

Quando estaba en Mexico

I found this one hiding in a file of musings and freewrites that I call "Random Shit." I thought of my friend Nessie, who was on this trip with me.

Quando estaba en Mexico

When I was in Mexico,
hell, part of me is still there,
sand in my hair,
ocean smell on my body,
drinking at the mayor’s liquor stand
with Scottie -- big red belly
hanging over his shorts
and scabby rashed shins,
drinking on his birthday
no different than any other day.

A ten-year old boy rides up on a bike,
dirty cheeks, hair in his eyes,
and holds out a package full of pictures –
inside are a granddaughter
who Scottie has never seen,
and an estranged daughter
now a mother.
It's been 12 years, he says.
I can still see his face as he grabbed
the handlebars of his large tricycle
and rode down the beach.

Think of it all like a story, Cory says,
frame each moment in words.
The chickens we wake to every morning.
The dolphins just offshore.
Maria, and the fushia flowers
trailing off her balcony.
And the yellow-bellied sea snake
Pelmis platurus
that I found lying dead on the beach.

Sunset Salutation

sunset pinking the crevice
where the mountains sigh in their saddle
of snow and dark
shadows of soil

I welcome the cold that creeps into my skin
I welcome the tingling in my feet
I welcome the fog that drifts from my lips
I welcome the fading light

I fill myself with the murmurings of the Earth
the energy that I receive
and give
with every breath

When you inhale, breathe in the entire universe.
When you exhale, re-create the world.

For the Love of Fruit

The leaf when loved becomes a flower,
the flower when loved becomes a fruit.
Italian proverb

half-melted ice slides
discreet down hills and valley
teased nipple hardens

crushed plum rests mid-thigh
violet flames ignite sweet trails
from apex to knee
creating new veins and nerves
to trace. my heart beat echoes.

the curve of my arm
is a melon rind offer
of honey-dewed flesh

watermelon seeds
slip down the slick sides
of my waist and hips

seedful grape oozes
over salty lips and tongue
swallow the water-
fall trickling down my throat
at its base a flower blooms