The gulf demands our attention, closes our eyes, empties our
minds
so all we feel is her breath like heads on lover’s
chests. We anticipate
the rock of the ship.
It’s trying to ignore the breath, the life, that causes
motion sickness. I
know this from pregnancy—the only cure is to lie
down and focus on the life inside. I do this with the sea, the roll of each
wave draws me into the life below. Watching Lion’s Mane and Tiger Sharks
and Long-armed Octopus, I open my eyes when I’ve seen too
much and stare
at the place where the sea and sky folds into itself like so
many bolts of blue fabric.
This is what brings Ahab, Pip and Starbuck together in one
zen moment: the perfect
crease of each blue jutting against each other like a chair
pulled up to a table. We know the
amorphous expanse of each, so watching the illusion of simplicity, with nothing
to distract us, brings thoughts of other realities beneath other surfaces. The Styrofoam cup
in front of me carries a history, links me to its first
handler at the Winn-Dixie plant.
This baby girl, Emily, and her loving grandparents, Bob and
Edith, are linked
to my story as I stare at the bag of cheerios, packed to
bribe silence.
Emily is me, babbling, gurgling happily despite the low
angle of the morning sun.
I am the toddler yelling “Chase Braden!” to his brother’s
friends as he squeals
on his Big Wheels down the street. I am Brooke, five and practicing ballet as my
friends
chase boys. I am
Brooke’s friends, playing with the neighbor baby, practicing for
motherhood; and I am Dakota, beaming at his brother, and
bike racing his mom.
A Jumbie-bean pod on the pavement becomes all life and
death, Dakota’s front tire
becomes my own, on Becker
Street , with a Strawberry Shortcake bike. Braden stares
in awe at a bird on a wire while I cry, not knowing who to
be; the child or the bird.
Edith hums “Frere Jacque” to Emily, not knowing she is also
singing “Braden Mikey”,
Her voice becomes my own.
I am Bob, smoking a pipe and absently stroking dreams
from my hair under the palm frond umbrella at the El Rancho
Hotel. I am Jerry, reading
the Miami-Herald and drinking coffee after a dip in the hot
tub. I am Ramon, talking on
the phone with his girl back home, assuring her tomorrow
will come soon; I am Walter,
Sleeping in the middle of the bed in a still dark hotel
room, while my wife gently brings
in the morning with coffee and poetry. All of us breathing on the same morning,
our lungs rolling like waves. The Bottle-Palm fronds criss-cross in front
of white lattice, showing the way we still echo what’s
already there.
The human desire to mimic and contain lines and colors from
nature
rages on—we want to bring the whole world into our
living room. I want to
sleep outside and turn my living room into the whole world.
