We met in the sandbox, which felt kind of like a beach
but hardly forbidden – the Garden of Eden without any fruit.
I had small hands, his were smaller
and were likely to drown in any sea we touched,
a forest or a wave or teardrops when saying goodbye. Well,
I gave him a kiss on the cheek every few minutes
so he invited me to his house.
The selling point was a tire-swing, big enough for two:
he said, milady, I saved this seat here for you.
When no one was looking he would hug my stuffed kitten –
our daughter. I didn’t even get angry when he rubbed
chocolate onto her nose, split water on her tail. Our first kiss
was shared between the three of us,
her bell dipping between our chests as if we were pets too.
In some ways we were. I
pushed him off the bed at night and he bit my toes
then spit up, saying my skin still tasted like salt and sand.

My childhood
was stubbing toes on pool railings
while trying not to drown
four foot tall, six feet under.

I sat by houseplants
on cold tile.
I lost my teeth to salt water taffy.

My parakeet was named
after a character on Full House
who had frizzy hair
and did not have her mama either.

One day,
she broke her beak.

It was my fault, I brought the
blood to my face as I would salve
to apologize

but it was far too late.
Daddy set her free while I slept.

I would rush to the
school supply aisle in Kroger
for pens and pencils
and bought Barbie dolls to glide
against the bayou’s surface.

Later, Katrina came
to sink everything I ever touched.
  
I thought
about the black men and their
saxophones downtown

how I wanted to replace the reeds
so badly
to hear New Orleans jazz
one final time before we moved.

The whole time
my sister was made of sage.

My brother slept on my Powerpuff
Girl sheets so often that
I kept my ******* in another room.

And I thought that
mothers came from fireplaces
because mine
hid her liquor in there sometimes.

With everyone but you, the photographs are scrutinized.

My mother says
we do not look close enough
or even as if we like each other at all.

But with you, she changes. Our skins seem tucked in
towards each other
the wrinkles know where to slouch,
I see not through the windows of my eyes but by braille.

There is a drug in us
leaving track-marks for the other to tongue.

More potent than wine, not as thick as moonshine,
this young and living love
amends the lighting in my bedroom and bathroom to the
consistency of honey, a shade of citrine.

Strangers are stopped from seeing
our pale complexion,
faces so close that the blood between us seems to blend.

I will rub your back until you forget what she did to you –
she was your first love, you were mine. I want to explain in words what
beauty looks like, but I have learned that the
fireworks when we cup our fingers together or sit too close are
even better than a kaleidoscope
unfolding holidays back into normal days. The 5th of July, January 2nd.

Well, in two days, they will have you under anesthesia
and I keep hoping you might say some
nonsense about my eyes. I keep worrying you’ll dream of her tongue.
You are on the side of catching any morning light –
but there is no comparison to a spark that has already burned out.

Touch me sweet, God, you gave me nine lives and
I would waste one to say something to
someone from three and a half years ago when
I still humored my pastor
and got guys hard past midnight, at every midnight.

Could meet them again, two by two
and forget he would love some part of me in the future.

She called me a loving *******,
I wasted three of my lives
loving him in silence. I could have shouted
that I deserved better than someone who never did

call me baby just because I am young.
I deserved to have God caress my shoulders like angel
wings, pick my feet off the floor, glide on tile
like soap bars on skin
I will use to wash his slow escape away from me.

In 2010, I mostly thought about *** on the beach.
Someone falling into me
when waves crash a whip into their back –
I, on mine, my heart filled with the weight of sandbags
packed for a Miami hurricane. When I was that
young, I believed I could show up
at a grown man’s house and hide the evidence in my
****. He would listen to music with a lot of
rhythm, it would influence the way the ocean breathed
and came salt beads on my skin.
The conversation was. The ******* was never –
I went to a smaller beach four hundred miles from his
anxiety and songs without guitar riffs. I
vomited every made up memory,
did not ******* for three weeks because I realized
the gulf could not break my ***** alone.
Broken-hearted. The end. We were so good and
my touch so smooth he thought it was just seashells.

I imagine I must talk to my dead seventh grade teacher
who told me to be better, who
told off the children when they brought me a butcher knife
because I cannot learn algebra if I am dead.

The deceased are more than likely with the sun
wherever it is right now. Tomorrow’s twilight, I will find
my dead seventh grade math teacher
stand on my tippy-toes,
try to be as tall as him and ask if he still thinks I should be
alive. Five years later and I cannot understand
why a person with his same name could
ruin my life when he, in turn, saved mine. I am a bad
person for wishing she were the one that the flu took then.

Unlike the others,
Mr. Kats did not mention the SATs or growing up. He
would not be there to see either happen
and I bet he believed God knew.

Then again, I knew the side of him that did not
know God well enough to remind me of a Mormon church
until I saw his youngest daughter alone on her knees
whilst the eldest sang about how
her father would never need to move with
a walker. I held my best friend’s hand
when we met his corpse, because he had saved her too.

I imagine we must talk, but not for me to tell him
that I do not care about algebra, I guess he already realizes.
We were never really special to each other
when I think about it,
he was too strict and I was too sad and now it’s too quiet:

I haven’t entered a classroom since, died some as well
but my only punishment
was a broken heart by his reincarnate. There was no lesson.