Three

They say memory is three
quarters smell
so for every remembered touch
for each ringing note, fallen silent
three scents must be attached.

All these photos must have changed things.
All these images must have taken
up the space where my nose would have stored
yesterday. Maybe it's only my brain
that forgets, maybe everyone else's works

that way. I had pneumonia at 19
and couldn't smell anything for a year
I didn't know if it had gone on holiday
or moved to another country
without so much as a Dear John letter

until, like a scratch-and-sniff postcard
walking past a street person on Telegraph Avenue
the pungent stench of ammonia startled me, for weeks
I stuck my nose into roses and bougainvillea
but got only thorns for my trouble.

Suddenly, acrid eucalyptus from the wildfire
fresh cut onions, frying
fresh baked bread
espresso
smell had returned.

I hope he had fun on vacation
and sauteed mushroom butter, rolled in rose petals,
cranked peppercorns, stomped grapes at harvest
all with his eyes closed
and his ears shut.

Maybe it's not memory
but imagination, and that's why there's no scent.
Were I to lose sense again
not fairness, or balance, or curiosity
and definitely not imagination

so even if I forget what love smells like
I can fill up the rest
with my eyes closed
and I'll still remember
you

From above

You have a girl
you have a boy
you have another boy.
She's an angel
whose wings get regular dustings
and every so often a prayer.
Meantime her brothers groan
from growing bones

so you keep getting reminded
there aren't many days left
until their eyes count
your gray hairs
from above.

He grew two inches taller this summer
with a darkening upper lip
revealing an ephemeral baritone whenever he speaks
to an adult or orders take-out
but when he bosses his brother around
a teen tenor.

He took up fishing, now
tying knots and devouring fish
books while throwing back the catch
patiently casting and trolling
often reeling in nothing
but smiles.

Their eyes count
tears still, though, sometimes
from a load of homework, more often fists or taunts
and every once from missing

her

Dirt

Beneath, dirt
and in the air, in the water,
dirt.
We're mud, wet moving ash,
temporary bone.
Time will crawl
circles around us
with our closed eyes
so let's build into the air
clatter up the stairs
in our fleshed skeletons
fashion words from ancient trees
and rasp through lips while we can
before the leaves crisp, and crumble.

The sun will still beat us
tear out every color until only bleach remains
leach supple skin, brittle
yet that seed, poke a hole
tend tenderly, moisten, wait,
wait, wait until green snaps sun
into waiting veins
as though flowing sap, or blood
means anything in itself.

It doesn't
matter, only
love comes
from dirt

Creek

The bed is cement
a flood control channel
keeping the stick houses that crowd the banks safe
except where floods broke the walls
and they brought boulders to fill in
where ever the relentless wet pounding had torn it apart.
But most of the year it's just thin
a meander through accreted silt and sand, tires and junk
as reeds strain to drink the sun
or feed the sturdy and opportunistic egrets and ducks,
gulls and crows, swallows and coots. Each spring wings
and beaks lay claim to another nest
which must be hidden in the warm.

There's no place to drop a line in the water
no overhanging trees to give shade
it's not deep or clean enough to swim
no surprising bends, no flats
an 11 year old can cast in,
and the beaks don't really make much sound.
But they will stalk what little fish scurry, float
the fluff chicks - a tiny, downy fleet -
whose whitening shells still litter.
In a few months the nests will wash away
when whichever caretaker rain god
concludes his pact with Ceres' lineage
and brings down heaven.

It's then the creek remembers
what it's like to pulse and growl
free, for a bit, to muddy the bed
and not just lay silent in a civic collar.

Surface

It began as tension
swirling on the surface
of a soap bubble
a thesaurus of blues
pinks that might make a flamingo green
with envy, purple majesty
the shade of mountains at dusk and thistle at noon
a cascade of yellow like my heaven star
red as a branding iron

I was the skin of a planet
in orbit around your heat
plates shifting, center magma cooling
so quickly I had to wrap myself
in burning oil
when you took your sun to another universe

I learned to carve
runes and scars with fine tipped
words, ever more intricate
a symphony of cuts, incisions that sang
so high that dolphins and bats replied
echolocating is a human skill
you find every nerve
responding if you slice finely enough

I took out thread and needle more fine than flaxen hair
sewing nimbly, looping colors like magnetic solar flares
like a medieval tapestry weaver, patient as a beetle
focused as a lens
when the welts finally heal
and you slide fingertips like reading braille
along the textured surface of each story woven
into my skin

will you remember when I was every color
your eyes ever wanted to drink in?

Spin

Yesterday Jax and Lang ran
laughing all the way into my gut again
catching and throwing a frisbee in the park.
When the grass is fresh cut, it lays down in clumps
and poofs into the air with each step
releasing that green scent
the one that smells like summer.
Folks walking dogs stop to chat
about the coyotes who live in the scrub
and the occasional poster for a "missing cat"
that never goes found. We step among rabbit pellets
but it's too small a park for deer.

It's my favorite part of the day
(except for the skeeters)
lining orange cones 5 yards apart, putting them
through the paces to teach them Ultimate Frisbee.
They only grumble a bit at the sit-ups and pushups
lunges and footwork, more so at the sprints.
I'll be the Pied Piper with plastic discs
paid in smiles and watching them grow
knowing how that spins back the dark
mine,
theirs, setting goals and scoring them.

One dad paused, wanting to bring his own 13 year old
home-schooled boy to join, and maybe ask the new boys
who just moved in, maybe the soccer girls next door,
all of them to gallop like meteors across the sky
and flash teeth like suns. He doesn't get out
much to socialize, maybe it'd be good
for him to meet other kids his age
he suggests. I encourage, Bring him, them,
next time, it'll be good.

Maybe it'll be enough to keep
the roughest part of growing up
from spinning out of control
maybe it'll keep them
from pictures on a poster that's never found

Embarcadero

That time, missing the last BART train leaving
me in the Embarcadero at night, no cab fare:
tire treads grew speakers, every window melted
into a speeding mirror, and footsteps
are never Swiss in the dark.

Even with slit eyes
I wasn't the brave cat, I didn't have fangs
or a cape and my Doc Marten's were half
a size too big to slink with stealth.

Shades and voices grew
inversely to my belly
or somewhere lower
and I was too indecisive
should I stay standing beneath the streetlamp
or scamper into a dark doorway
before they came into view:
spiked hair, four knee high boots, leather motorcycle jackets,
stepping into the light beneath the lamp
laughing at something I didn't make out
and then, stopping, two
girls with shining eyes, the shorter one
casually looping her arm round the other's waist
and inclining her face, kissing
as though nothing else mattered

not the pending bus ride across the bay bridge
or the skinny geek, or other throats echoing, or the cadence
of passing cars thump-thumping down the street,
not harsh yellow light or sharp long shadows
or tomorrow or yesterday or the tangy salty smell
barreling down Market - nothing intruded
and suddenly the dark felt warmer,
though I didn't step closer
they made the night feel safe.