Hydra
When I was twelve, I felt
a new body surge out
of me, the swell of glands,
sprout of hairs,
my strange reflection suspended
in mirrors, store windows,
puddles on kickball courts.
Under haze of junior-prom fog machines,
my cells pulsed with
non-senescence,
primed by
pomade cowlicks, clip-on ties,
man-child bristle.
Each night I dreamt in chlorophyll,
batting my cilia lashes;
simple animal hunger churned
within me.
Even now Blue Lagoon plays
on repeat in my mind—
a boy’s hand finding its way down
to my tendriled fingers as
theater lights dimmed.
I was electrified by his first touch,
how voracious my coiled embrace,
the tang of iron on my tongue!
Bloom
I am
the lone diver glowing
in moonless night.
The water is a dark open sore.
I feel my way
through kelp jungles,
my oxygen ticking away
in silver domes.
Soon I am among them: swarms of jellyfish
drifting
like smoke
from the Mariana trench.
They undulate,
boneless and brooding
as I flee from their path.
Memory tugs at me like a current:
I was a sieve too slight to hold you,
a water child who passed
through me like a wave.
Now you are in pursuit,
voiceless and brilliant
as a bloom
of sea nettles.
Night Gazing
We spent our wedding night
in a Winnebago
parked in the Arizona desert.
We watched Planck’s satellite
make its descent to earth.
John Philip Sousa blared
from the radio and we scooped
Ben and Jerry’s with our fingers.
Trumpet of metal and wire,
Planck heralded the birth
of a universe, images of cosmic clouds
heavy with stars and galaxies.
We clasped newly banded hands
as the sky blazed. Years later,
I ease you into the tub.
Water pools in your collarbones,
your body frail as bleached lace.
I have watched you plummet,
darken like a severed sun.
Somewhere a Winnebago hangs
a sharp left in the Milky Way.
Red dwarves ping off its belly,
its engine humming along
to parades of newborn stars.
It barrels towards us
at the speed of light.
