Emmysu

A street light beams down onto a large tree

Throwing a deeper shadow on the dark grass,

almost as thick as

Film noir.

Squinted eyes can make out two blond dogs playing

under the tree.

There's a fenced-in pool that's filled with dirt and weeds,

Vacant and abandoned, and growing, thriving.

Just beyond lies a stretch of motel,

15 rooms,

and two rivers meeting at a fork.

Four men sitting around a small table in their metal chairs

Chat about fish as they pass the spitting cup.

Spit. One fish.

Spit. Was bigger.

Spit. Than I'd ever.

Spit. Seen before.

The legend, the dream.

The moon in crescent.

There's ice cream dripped on the porch of the motel house,

as the cicadas play the overture -

broad, long, slower, somehow, this time.

King size room for you?

Double bed?

Or two?

Time isn't linear.

We've been here the whole time,

In this moment,

In two different rooms, where

we don't love each other

anymore.

In the mornings

I'd step out onto those sun-faded rocks and

Feel the sting of the heat beneath my feet.

Fruitless olive branches,

Squirrel-grounded avocados, and

One giant orange tree

Cast dark shadows on the chalky ground.

The sweet and light fragrance of

The orange blossoms

Pressed against my lungs from the

Shallow breeze.

But it was deep,

Deep enough to lure me in most mornings

To reach up for ripeness,

Comb between branches, and

Toss the ground for any healthy thing

Left from the birds and bugs.

I'd squeeze and pluck and

The juice would run down my wrists,

Drip off my elbows, and

Hit Henry on the nose.

I'd hold the bottom of my shirt out

Like an apron

And fill it up -

Five, six, seven.

I'd fill it up to make cups.

It took almost four oranges to make a glass.

We didn't see much water in the dry months,

And that season seemed to last years.

But when the mist would come in the mornings,

And the haze would hang until noon,

They'd drip and drool out that honey

Thicker than you remembered it.

The sound bath

Held like a new born

Swaddled,

Crying out.

The darkness directing focus to the only source of light-

The crystal bowl in my hands.

Eyes mesmerized as weight becomes visible,

The sides folding on itself as it sings,

And then nothing audible at all,

Just darkness, groping and turning,

Melting and warping,

Into pieces as long white ice cubes.

Hot body,

Twisted knee,

And heart attack -

The yarrow as the MRI

To the uterus

And to the trauma of holding on to you.

The blood clot-less

To birth the lining

To push out a baby that could be there

To make sure it cannot live-

Just this bowl,

This nightmare,

This beautiful, unhealthy fixation.

I saw you, my lover,

Cut the marble from the side of the mountain.

I saw you turn your back to me,

It's contour mesmerized me as you dug out the stone

that was silver, white and veined.

I saw you rip into the earth

And push it down in a heavy quake.

I saw you in your reaping,

It awakened me from my sleep.

I saw you carry the mass down the mountain

And set it up beside me.

I saw your grip on the rasp

As blood blistered on your callused palms.

I saw your lungs fill with dust

And you breathed heavy, long and deep,

Sanding the sharp into smoothed,

Snow falling around me.

I saw you go back,

Harvesting out more and more

to make another and then another,

Six pillars of perfected core.

I saw you lift them up

And rest a roof of security softly over my head.

My lover, I saw you, sculpted body and sure footing

Fix toward me,

Raised arms and pressing shoulders powerfully

Take place as the final column.

And with no walls to enclose me,

I saw you love me.