we are all     gods                                 children                    

left in a parked car       with the windows up                 

and i think about summer and the wet air 

breathing fog onto the windshield       and 

fireflies losing themselves           in a sticky 

sundown and like this  we  are  all  ending. 

every year,       the sugarcane burns

my throat,       hoarse    and buggy        sky, 

parents scolding skinned knees            and    

broken curfews and the cool glass          of     

sweet tea sweating a halo into               the              

checkered tablecloth.    when i was young 

enough               to know god i went down            

to the seawall and fed            the manatees     

with a garden hose and      every year since   

the water rises         and they do not return.              

i like to think that              somewhere  else,            

our grandparents      once again     sit down     

for tea with a smiling child           and speak     

of the saltsky or  newly-formed laugh lines 

emerging  on  the   canyons   of   our  faces.     

and  perhaps  they  tell  us  that  everything 

beautiful belongs in the sea,              or alive                

in  a  star  on  the  shelf  of  a  cluttered  sky, 

stillbodied  and   unstuck  like  a  trembling 

clothesline or                nestled palm cupped               

to  catch  the  wind  as  it  whistles  by.  and       

we too will one day need a change            of 

scenery,                 crawl along the interstate             

with         everything  we  have  left  to  love             

and nothing else,                 a speckled night 

shooting across  the tapestry of sky.       say 

hello.     say you will remember,      you will    

speak us into  another  brief  and  beautiful          

existence.


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