Elixir

Poseidon sends foam
lips to kiss my feet each time I visit.

The drops say: watch this! and proceed to grab
bits of stone, pebbles, boulders
when I don't notice
grind them every day
until I look up, or rather down
at the crumbs now sticking to my ankles
to be reminded by the rumbling voice
Here you are.

Sand is a liquid
he says
the elixir of memory
where else do you remember
the blinding glint
the scent of coconut and salt
your love's hand
clenching at the snap of a wave
when else do you face eternity
(he ignores Zeus and all the stars at night, of course
and Hades' freshly dug dirt)

He makes me smile when he talks that way
mouthy wet sand
memory sticking to my waist band
and irritating when least expected
but which, when finally washed clear
still returns
here you are

Wigs

G can choose from six wigs
though now, a year post-chemo, mostly it's her own hair
she lets fly in the wind.

There's the blond bob and five shades of brunette
all short compared to R
but a couple lace down to mid-back.

She says there were days she had to find some way to rise
and feed her kids during three hundred days of treatment
so she did, wig or not.

She says her skin, like her clothes, sloughed off her hips.
Photos show her staring at the camera, daring it
to say she looks anything but alive.

Vitiligo developed across her upper chest and back and face
but somehow a heart appeared on her right shoulder blade
about the size of nearly touching your thumb to ring finger

it's still there
although the heart that grew on her face faded.
I think she grew extra because she has more heart than most

anyone I know. So now when she wears spaghetti strap shirts
and the sun comes out if she forgets it turns the pale heart pink
which seems appropriate, if risky, for a cancer survivor.

Still, she smiles when I trace my index finger on the perimeter
like tracking a route on a map of her heart
while her own hair smells of coconut shampoo.

She says she loves Halloween
so maybe the wigs will come in handy then
when she can hide amidst everyone from D.

Memory

If I make a sound
it's an accident
like the rustle of leaves on a sidewalk.

My voice croaks like a toad in reverse
unfurling its long tongue and letting go
a king.

We're petals and wings, we are
bits of color unfolded from the black
self-made origami
excited utterances
that slip back into hiding
whenever the light burns too strong
only to re-emerge, pushed out of the dark
by a breath.

We're dirt-encrusted seeds
secret turns that one by one become leaves, pistils, stamens, flowers,
and seed again
while seed memory - a flower, a heart - flirts with hovering flies
enticing with sweet exhales
until one alights to be stealth painted in pollen
freeloading to the next seed memory.

That's all there is
when the air arrives to lift a wing into flight
or brushes petal lips to catch a scented kiss:
where you once had eyes for me
there is only memory.

One small step

He passed the gate today.
Neil Armstrong soared and we followed, when we could
though so many cage ourselves in
rather than see what might lie beyond.

I didn't see the moon or the earth as he did
a fragile blue-green dot peeping through the starry black
or maybe I do since we learned
(some of us)
that the universe is much bigger than a few hairless apes.

We can peer through the bars.
We can see the birds
still attached by gravity but able to, for a while, leap and cavort.
Maybe that's what he did: allowed our spirits to fly
even though we know the inevitable.

Do you know what field expands on the other side?
What lingers in the fog?
When will we be brave enough to close our predictions
pass through the gate
and let the cool, green scent of grass guide us?

Nape

You can't know
every girl's heart. Some want to reach
right in and grab the beat

while another might smile
as she blows a hole through you
before mounting you
on the wall with her other trophies.

Wild isn't soft.
My nape isn't downy, it's bristly,
matted with dirt, flea-bitten, mangy,
sleeping under boughs and stars
in the rain, eyes downcast, in the heat, panting,
nibbling at grass or wild roses
or tame roses if they aren't guarded by fences
because thorns or consuming beauty don't mean anything
when you're hungry.

And then it's over
not how you thought, is it,
Diana was the Huntress
and led her pack, arrow notched,
standing up to Apollo.

Don't mistake fair.
Don't turn your back
since we may as well face what's coming:
inside every smile is a slice

Average

When you take the black
letters, hips jutting provocatively
from the placid white page
smooth them out, add then divide
like some emotional accountant
filing notes on a spreadsheet
an average of love
spikes from your heart
they puddle into grey

Average is where we land
it's the law
standing in pre-sized shoes
forgetting the bright sun that bathes us
like that time at the zoo watching the new baby elephant
already wrinkled and snouty
but acceptably so
grey its nature
nature its habit

And night's luxury, magnified silence, absent
light except when is light truly absent
if you can pull the sheet over your eyes
blink so hard stars appear
like some private heaven
piercing silver and gold into the muddled black
the grey that won't stay
still

trying to collect
and recollect if being lumped in together
a bumpy hash, with all the others,
is something you do
to yourself

Explaining

I could try
explaining
then the word spreads out like an oil spill
letters stretch more than an old waistband
that no longer quite holds in
what it's supposed to

"Ex" as in former
"plain" as the nose on my face or that place
where rain falls or not-vanilla yogurt
"ing" as in dyslexic gin I should be drinkgin

and it loses
what it was supposed to keep
this explaining
dropping keys down the culvert
butter-side-down floor toast
a quiet confidence

The look in your eyes
if I could see them, if you could try
blinking the wet out of the word
me explaining
and let me see them again

but I can't make sense
the syllables jumble themselves up
a sibilant S, a glottal G, a misshapen
word too often leaked out
explaining doesn't spell
trust