Like water, yes, and like water
as it meets an oyster reef,
rough-shelled, corrugated, edged
to slice foot skin though it calms the waves.
Or else like water as it slides
through twisted mangroves, root thickets
sheltering the shoreline from floodtide.
Better not like cyclone waters up against
an old seawall, pounded to collapse,
betray stark lives so tightly held
behind its frail endurance.
If I admire reef or mangrove
I must allow the worst to flood the spaces
in this net I call myself. Unwall my exhaustion.
Lay bare to the knowledge
that some now live who cannot care
if I sleep or drag myself deadeyed from bed.
Hold it real as lightning: this is a time
when "our shared humanity" struggles
to achieve the power of cliché,
and fails. Be open to my own dusk,
while the porch impatiens raises
its two scarlet faces. While the blue jay
throbs its two-note courting call,
the catalpa festoons in cascades
of white blossoms I've not seen in years.
This is not about pretty things.
If I frame my heart as an exhausted levee,
refuse to admit I'm sinking,
how could I find my feet again?
Open the front door, walk until I see
a greenbelt park path I've never
walked before, a wide dirt track
walled by blocks of lush wisteria.
Inside a dirt drawing of the sun
someone has left a tiny cairn. Traced
a cartoon picture in the dust
of their family car, set stones for hubcaps.
I turn and raise my eyesight to a bed
of orange daylilies, their lush swag.
