The Color of Bodies Along the Tongue of the Sea
we live in neighborhoods damp with voices
memories flag and flutter along the streets as lost balloons
stories ripen over water the way steam rattles its teeth in the dark belly of a pregnant kettle
and language’s echo pokes beneath our feet
once your hope left palimpsests of legends trampled and squeaking in the dark
as the green morning and the palm fronds fell from a roof
was the tropical storm that swept away the evening prayers ourselves
or our vices tattered over
a strewn blanket finger-tangled from a once fitful child, the still voices
linger along the cat’s spine backward
tail nub to spine point to tip of the nose
until we are warmed, our hearts de-boned
tenderized long after the balcony’s detritus was swept away
words
with their assurances and whatever-elses
remain tugging at the knobs and latches
we clasp together a lei of stars stem-by-stem for our necks
pull down a colorful garland of loss and flowers from the failing light of planets
sing out the corners of heaven for the families who traveled a cosmos to rest along a child’s collar
sang off-tune beneath the bridges,
the outrigger carving the waves’ eulogy below the mountains
an uncle rings a Hala nursery’d from the garden to crown the waves
as the sun steps out the door waving
whose drowned heart undulates from the trench-deep breath
whose reef broke upon grief in waves of sharp turns, finless
float umbilical-less and tucked in at the knee, our teeth in our chest
the platform and the cloudmouth fell apart
our bones went jangling and we drift eternally in the brown sun
fish still waving, sharks drift and drift
did we not
as the bitten smile of the sky’s dark eyes made slender the world
your touch on the sea
in the morning the shoals, the sunburn and the chapped lips may not survive
a gull’s wearied wingtip shall graze over the glowering expanse
feather to white cap in the distance
between the buttress zone and seaward slope, a lone question
surfaces
marine and terrestrial fingers lock
and another story falls off the hips of the land
the moon fires blue in the trees and illuminates our broken bodies
the moon fires blue in the trees and illuminates our broken bodies
and now we too go, tumbling.
