The Sensual World
You have forgotten the ocean.
Not uncommon. After all,
summer leaves it to strangers
to look after you.
You remember
the brilliant white light of scales and how
it made your teeth ache.
You pause,
wince at the retreating wave
as it drags its net of sparkles
across the sand,
and splash a few steps.
Your feet cool.
The red dye of the shore
washes away.
Water chains your ankle.
You’re in.
The earth frightened me. I wanted it
it to rest as more than simply a heavy
and irrelevant
wedding ring of cycles.
So, last spring,
desperate,
not knowing what else to do,
I took on the duty of watering
a basket of snapdragons.
The petals trembled with flashbacks
of their births
in a hive of muddy boots, wet light
and fetid creepings of wild season.
Someone planted the flowers,
someone else had to water them.
Their helmet of tongues wagged with thirst.
That night
I dreamed that a boy who had been dead for awhile
was the fourth letter of God.
Surprised by the boy’s face,
the flowers jumped up and bloomed.
He remembered
that the earth’s discomfort is catalogued
in its handiwork
and in remembering
called the blossoms to life.
I didn’t pretend to understand
when the dream cocoon unraveled, dwindled
and then dissolved
in the watering can.
That afternoon,
I dug my fingers deep
into the drenched soil
which was alive
with the smell of attempt.
Memory. The anti-
matter of dreams.
Golden petals of revelation.
The sun’s kissing
(or scratching?)
your back as you leave
its arms for the sea’s…
You’d think there’d be
an easier way into it,
but there isn’t.
You have to use both your hands.
