We Do Mushrooms in the Bath in Napa
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.
After the Beach, I Take Myself to Birthday Oysters
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.
No Matter What Happens
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.
