HOME | DD

Description
You were full of fire and broke like bony driftwood,
raging landlocked and dry;
your stitching chafed and burnt at the edges,
and you stormed gales against softsand fortresses
and gritty moats dug by child's hands.

Amelia, you were your own rules for capture.

1.       I am immune, I think,
         because I have laid downwind whore bars and aquariums
         and curiosity has not infected me.

2.      Dreaming makes me seasick.

3.      Today, I wanted to be a bird.
         One of those brown, begging twitches
         because seeds and cranberries are easy things to love and
         no one misses a gone piper.

I still find your goddamn memoirs scrawled
in my mind: the things you said before you left,
a trail of bitter scent and wet-grit footprints I followed to the shore.

4.      Do you know what hesitation is?

5.      It is an omen.

The beaches were cold that season,
closed off like mussels and just as colorless,
and I imagine without the marine layer
I could have watched the masts of your ship
press themselves to the horizon in fever motion:
were you dizzy and stoned, Amelia,
when you threw yourself to the rocks?

6.       I have to eat some days, but I feel light
          and like gravity alone could lift me up.

Your hair had always been heavy and dark-
but it was never up to me to notice its erosion
over months and your nail beds turning salty,
or the desperation in your mouth.

7.        I'm still sorry for me, but mostly I'm sorry to him.

8.        There is something I cannot do
           about leaving him because-

I like to think you finally fell with all grace
because for three months you stumbled like urchins
and adhered yourself to the surface of sand;
slipping off continental shelves, you were deep down
in murk so fragile and you never let your heels touch the floor.

9.        -I could just hotbox his eyes.

When I look back, I see you tidepool unsteady,
cross-legged on the driftwood coffee table,
minnows roiling from between your teeth
like a school of smoke and bullshit.

10.        Pay attention.  I'm here, so pay attention.
             Sometimes I make it so easy,
             he could look at me and see and I would be saved.

I'm still trying to understand,
Amelia, I'm trying so hard.

11.         I decided four days ago that I was never made
              for balmy beaches all colorful umbrellas
             and coolers of juiceboxes and hard pomegranate lemonade;
              I would miss the weight of down and heavy shoes.

12.         I always step on the cowry shells.