I feel like a finger
that wore a band-aid in the shower,
peeling cotton cardigan
from winter-whitened skin.
I pray in the grass like a mantis,
a praying mantis is a girl in a green dress.
I like the prickly cactus hairs
on my hastily shaven legs
my flushed cheeks
and the wild wispy hairs
blown from my braid.
I like the squinting
the sweating
the juice dribbling down my chin
and the rock in my ring.
The sun,
who is my mother.
puts her hands on my shoulders and I tell her,
I am so happy I could die!

In Ireland, sea swept and green
against the wind, this mast, salt lipped and bent
by the mad skipping white caps
farther out - the gray fading ships
closer in, the tiny bobbing boats
amid misty fog they float
nets and fish, heavy they list
the watery wilds
toward home.

Count blessings,
or count sheep.
I count victories--
the number of times I made you laugh.
Extra points
for the kind that live so deep in your belly
you must toss back your head
to let it escape.

I wish I were you, grey speckled horse
with your feet in the mud.
Or you, bathing goose
by the pond's shore with your mate.
I wish I were the wide field
with sun on its back
and thick clouds like a blanket
making
placid pools of shade.

Not four hours ago,
you shed your sequined skin, tucked in (up to your chin)
and now already, morning has broken on you
like an egg.

Only half asleep for having to ***,
and for toes cold as the window pane
allowing January's first sun-streams
to turn your mess of hair
to the illusive leaves
of a willow tree.

It's 62° in January
and the sky is spitting.
I've rolled the car window
to let the little drops
hit my hand
like bugs that burst
on contact.

1
Sunset.
Shards of seashells and the whites of waves all illuminated.
Beautiful things remind me of you.

2
Tonight my family went out on the beach,
that some author called the cheek of God,
but the sky was black.
I watched my siblings dance with glow bracelets around their wrists and ankles
and do cartwheels in the pitch dark
and my parents laughed at the flying disk.

3
I felt sad remembering that one day
this wouldn't be my life.
And one day
I wouldn't have a life.

4
The stars looked like O'Ryan's bow or something.
They offered me a wish
so I wished that you were next to me
hip to hip, sandy skin.

5
You are 499mi away tonight,
but soon enough, you'll be holding me,
and then I'll be sad thinking that one day,
you won't be in my life,
and I won't have a life.

6
I try to think about you and I.
I wonder about the life I'll have when
it's not my life anymore.
I try to imagine my own children,
and loving people I've never met.

7
Time stops when you kiss me.
I'm happy.
You taste like eternity.