The fog here is thick, until you step into it.  
The storm rages until you get to its eye.  
I wish this same principle could be said of me, too.  
But like a gas giant, you could slip right through me with
                         the smallest amount of pressure.
There is no calming sense of self at the core.
Gravity does not apply to me.

There’s a boat on the lake cutting through the fog.  And then nothing.  
                                                      ­                                    More waves.  
                                                        ­            More birds.  
              The fog covers it all up again.  
The sun slinks and the tide comes in, or is it out?  Does it matter?  
The moon controls it in some way—the push, the pull of the waves.
At least the lake looks blue today,
                           looks green today.
The geese are in the water now.  The families are packing up.  
                             The ice cream shop is closing.

And I do not remember if I was ever here with you.  
                                This, of course, is a collective you.  
Could mean you, my reader,
                                               could mean one specific person,
                                               or two
                                                             ­       or three
                                                                ­                          or four;
could be whoever I'm thinking of when I reread this to myself.  
That’s the funny thing about the litany of loss.  
                                           It all starts to congeal.  

Waves crash against the rock.  Starts to chip away, create something new.
                                                      That’s what memory does.
It’s not permanent.  It’s malleable.  
Flexible.        Bendable.        Moldable.  
It smells like lakewater.  Like
                                                  fish and sand and mud and
                            gulls and rocks and shells and
     algae and fog—thick, thick fog.  
Smell is supposed to be one of the biggest memory triggers, and yet
                                       I cannot place a single memory of you here.
                                                    And that’s mildly crushing.  

So I would take you here:
                                              to where I wish the air was
                                                       saliter and less earthy.  
                                              to where I come sometimes to think.  
                                              where the clouds are so thick and puffy and
                                                            the setting sun makes them look like                                                                cotton candy on the Fourth of July.
                                              where the sun’s reflection on the water
                                                                ­      turns the green lake pink.  
                                              where the geese are back out of the water and
                                                                                                     onto the shore.
I would take you here with me.  
Into a new memory.  
                                      Homemade.        Handmade.        DIY.

I’ll miss summer mornings on the lake.

Waking before sunrise to rooster-like loon calls.
Sipping coffee as the sky passes black to blue via orange,
the primordial seeming low, silver fog,
the first searing glints of reflected daylight
like bright angels announcing morning.

Jumping in that electrically cold water
and moments later - shivering
in the towel’s warm, comforting embrace
as the fresh day starts to warm.

The sun is slowly going down,
And summer breeze glides down my skin.
The moves of water calm me down,
The sounds of sax and guitar strings.

Amazing views and birds around,
I reach some joy and, maybe, peace
And while I stare at rosy clouds
I feel nostalgic bittersweet

girls like you
deserve a love that
always feels
like summer,
a love that
sings like waves against the sand
feels like freckles and anklet tanlines
smells like sunscreen and
Mackinac Island Fudge
dripping down your chin—
a love that never ends
like those rays of sun that
spray over Lake Michigan
and tickle heaven.
you part your lips
to speak and
just like that
my world
becomes
lyrical—
dipping and twisting
like a kite in the sky
flowing freely like
your baby hairs coming
out of your braid,
like your laugh as it
echoes down the
quiet shoreline,
around the chambers
of my soul.
girls like you
deserve a love that
always feels
like summer—
I pray that
your summer
never ends.

~
I hold still,

let him finish stabbing me

                                                 — I count six,

let him believe me dead,

he moves on to Cecelia.

--

It does not go as well for her

as she continues to writhe and scream

and carry on,

not well at all
                                             
               ­                              — I count eight,

                                                                nine,

                                                                ten...
~

A team of four - or more than two
Tappy children waddle by -
To see the lake - with a loon, with
Their mother - looking nigh:

Their funny games, which all they play
Throughout the night of orange suns;
Of tannéd eyes the streetlights flay
And run on home would all of them:

Then father comes and takes away
To other places in a night;
All gone the children, gone today -
Perhaps they'll come another time.