How good it feels to be naked and nowhere

else. The edges of us blurred and out of focus.

Our fight, forgotten. Blame in piles on the bathroom

floor. You take a photo, my loose laughter, my gown

of suds. Love, it’s horrible what middle age has done

to us: mortgages, toddler tantrums, constant tyrant

of time. Forgive me for the worry, the ways stress stitches

my speech. Survival can feel so solitary. But now

the water laps. The mushrooms nudge. Open

and more honest, we float. Of course, I’m lonely too,

I whisper. Put my hand to your cheek. Maybe

the hardest part of love is remembering it’s there.  

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Delicious to swallow something so expensive.

Slurp the salty gray pillows and rosemary gin.

For years now, I’ve been searching for a truth

I could die to. How to dress for the weather

of my forties. Healing and health scares

and second acts. But still, I’ve learned to slip

into silence like a warm bath. Return to myself

like a tide. In Venice Beach, someone named

two Adirondack chairs and a slab of concrete,

Second Chance Park. There’s a 30-minute time

limit. Now my life’s likely half over, I have no more

use for lonely. Not with all the starfish and Redwoods.

The Pacific and her thousand blues. Not with this

tiny corner where anyone can start over.

Not with all these empty shells on my plate.

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It’s been a wet sleeve of a week. Taxes,

jury duty, and hope on her knees. But

‍

somewhere waits the first marigold bites

of spring. Somewhere, a child is learning the letters

‍

of their name. No matter what happens,

you’re still you. Still know how to a white-knuckle

‍

a dream. Lose yourself in a coastal view. It’s winter

in California; the difference between

‍

light and dark is thirty degrees, is how

you talk to yourself. When no one is looking,

‍

you stand at the edge of the dock, toes over

a watery blue. Across this cold

‍

is a mountain. Nothing between you

and your future but fog.

‍

Because what I think they’re saying is happy almost.

Happy new dirt and taller sun. Happy unwinter.

Happy divorce, or degree, or old self you’ve shedded

like a rattlesnake to become. Happy tulips and hunger

and red lipstick at spin class on Wednesday. Happy licking

Crème brûlée off your middle finger. Happy repeating the word No

(no, no, no) like the gorgeous punctuation you’ve fought for.  

Happy more of this, please and you already know my answer.

Happy bright fucking purple. Every fear has a finish line.

Happy rain and petals, and even if it took twenty years

and a few extra dress sizes, happy answering your own prayer.

Peace can be a habit, too. Happy today is it. Is here. So kiss them

already. Tell your dead mom your book just sold.

That your daughter’s laugh sounds like a rock tumbler

smoothing earth into orange calcite. The geese fly

backward through decay and daisies. We trudge through

teeth and spit and promises of one day. Until it arrives.

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to open the champagne, dusty with

patience. To drink the desert.  Bite

the neck of  someone new.  To quit

the  job,  the man,  the lie you swig

from  every  winter.  The  standstill

traffic   of   excuse.   Tomorrow   is

always so hungry. Sometimes, even

your  own  life  forgets  to  call you

back.   The   sun   sets   somewhere

warmer and teal. Maybe the trick is

believing       enough      to      keep

opening—doors,  prayers, avocados,

arms,    and    elevators.      To keep

pushing  the  loud  button  of want,

until     the     future     becomes    a

dance floor beneath your feet.

Always in such a rush to hurry up and live.

Scribble joy off my To-Do list. How American

to want it all and still say more. Don’t I have

every ounce I thirsted for: quiet water, endless

ink, a little love on both sides of the bed.

I want to be less scared and more

salt water. To taste the wind

and never beg it to stay.

‍

Water can drown. Can float.

Interpretation makes anyone

a god. It’s pouring outside.

The world owes me a drink.

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