She ate at a table for two,
coffee, bagel, solitude.
She brought her mouth to the spoon,
not once looking down at her food.

She searched the current instead,
a flying flock of quick steps.
Her face is blurry at this distance.
Ahead she sat, in her brown sweater,
buried into the brick wall behind her.

Her unsettled eyes stand out, shifting.
A fingertip drummer skips a beat, finger nail high hat
–enter green shirt, large, red, back pack –
and then a solo.
A low, bass heart lifts in crescendo.

She stands, hello, she sits,
a white daisy field of smiles.
He curtains the show.
Now I look down to watch
her shadow.

She ran a hot bath
so she could be alone.
Bubbles, like dead fish
on the surface were quiet.
She listened beneath,
the tap was a waterfall.
And she had become
Maelstrom.
A whirl pool in the center of some world,
in another universe,
where those fish were alive
and they could converse.
They loved her, they said,
but what did they know,
“stupid fish,”
she said, “liars leave me alone.”
They clung to her and stayed,
experts of exfoliation,
they cleansed her,
gave her new skin,
the wing of a fish,
her own tail,
something to move forward with.
But her eyes were closed.
The entire time her eyes were closed,
her face wet with the light in her bathroom
and the tears she could not shut in.
She drained the water that she could not move
that Sunday afternoon.

On a warm, sunny day,
The beach is loved.
The waves caress the shore,
The sun kissed sand will dance on the breeze,
And laughter is a song.

Children will bury the things they love
deep inside her pockets.
But the sun will move on to other sands.
The babes will dig up their things and go,
shaking out their pockets.

They will not dig their toes into her warmth
because they are asleep
clinging to his chest hair;
they won’t let go of daddy.
How they love their daddy.

At night no one loves the beach,
except the waves that beat her.
The grains harbor cold and everything hardens.
Now the moon, no longer the sun,
reigns the sky and enlightens

                                                    with a distant stare.
Your raging waves, your frigid moon, your children,
you are everything, everywhere.
But I am only one beach of many.
And when you are rough and harsh, I thicken.
I am a lover.
I am resistant.

At the height of the day’s heat,
my grains are dry and loose.
I still hide surprise sea shells inside your shoes.
I still smile when you kiss me,
When you breathe against my dunes.

But when night creeps on,
and that wind begins to bite,
a beach has no arms with strength
and no legs to walk away.
I am not crazy, I am a lover,
the beach is loved [only] on a sunny day.

When the darkness comes
the light of day is painful
the most brilliant hue of blue
makes you want to close your eyes and never open them again.
And when you do, you cannot close them.
Even the hollowing aura of sleep does not drown you the way the dullness does.
When you're disgusted by sincerity
and you run from happy eyes because they haunt you.
They seem empty, unreal, too alive.
The pulse in your veins makes you squirm,
makes you feel like the living dead because you know this isn't life.
This is the shadow of death when the sun is behind him and he is walking backward so that he grows on you and stays with you as long as you will have it.
Until you awaken from sleepless nights
and decide to breathe again.

I used to dance.
But when you came here
The music stopped.
I no longer dance
To hold my reflection still
and perfect in your eyes.
When you came here
We would sleep all day,
Exhausted from gazing
at each other amazed.
And it was quiet
As a vacuum.
I only feel rhythm in you.
My heart dances to
the shy pulse in your neck,
But the music has stopped.
I just don't hear it.
I only hear you.
Your words tickle my ears,
Your voice melts honey in my soul,
and in this moment,
To hold my smile in bliss
and carelessness,
I want to dance with you.
I would move slowly to the silence
But you begin to hum.
When you started humming dear,
I'd hoped that the music was gone forever.
I would sway to your sound forever,
for all other sound has
Lost its fervor,
And for music,
My passion is gone.
I do not miss it. I shall not long for it.
All the breath in me is gone to sighs,
My energy, turned to heat.
The music is gone
but I will not long again.
As long as
you are here.

He moved into the dead rose
red paint that peeled
into dust under our squeaking rubber soles,
framed by white lines, dictators, rules.
End lines like yellow tape,
Do Not Cross over.
One step past my scramble;
one foot, hark on its toes,
grows from the red; two
white leather flower pots
for his pulsing hairy legs.
He had paused with a purpose,
it seems, he teased,
then bounced rubber rock on rock
before he looked back at me.
Hovered by his shadow and
the hoop that crowned his head,
I lunged to take a risk.
In the name of all those 5 foot 4,
I threw my hand through
the shape his elbow formed,
cutting edge with cutting edge,
with swift. I’d managed to learn
the burn of rubber escaping
my fingertips. I’d touched
what was his, this giant hoop tyrant,
but would soon claim what was mine.
My chest sunk back into my frame
deflated of hope and pride,
only to be filled instead with shame,
while his song –grunt, swish, clap, YES –played,
and belittled by his High Five.

What demented creatures, this humanity,
Who praise the unseen and visit the dead,
who dread darkness, naming emotions, expressions,
Love, hate, catatonic depression. Obsessed,
counting each second in a steady breath.
Who wish upon eyelashes and stars,
Who hex and jinx, condemn and curse,
Cross our fingers when we lie,
Bless our food and pray to God
That before we wake, we do not die.
In the various words of noble voices, I’ve heard
the sole thing keeping us from death is breath.
Yet, our friend of old and dear
whom we keep so inseparably near,
is the one thing keeping us from life –fear.