Lying knee deep in a moss-green bed
I wake up and I am teen-aged.
The river rolls by
renaming my fear of goodbyes.
30 bucks in my pocket says
I can make it to college.
In the meantime,
I sing from musical memory
in simple rhythmic ripples
only to remain chest high
in the sun-deep sea.
I stay here because I choose to.
I try to remember little-girl landscapes:
when I’d listen to lovers laughing
in the shade of the cypress trees,
watching tree limbs shake their leaves,
standing silent and still
beside Burnt Mill Creek,
black butterflies dancing in summer heat,
my father pushing hair off my face,
both of us ink-drawing with salt-sweat
dripping off our sunburned cheeks
onto ink-sketched paper.
In between sketch pads,
my father reads Lorca,
speaking in our first language-
the language of his father’s father.
We speak Spanish under Spanish moss.
We are in this frame together,
bonded by blood.
I try to remember.
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