Carrie Lorig
I want to look at you before we go
and guess the correct number
of healed bones inside of you.
It is a fact that the sea
will take the peninsula back.
I have always assumed it will
be an all at once kind of thing,
the total saltwater immersion package.
I see us at the beach
in a dirty dishtowel of a car, prepared
to accept jobs as haunted oyster mansions,
inventing, while we can,
a flashlight that flickers sunrise
and kites
with voice boxes in their tails.
My kite will yell “7!”
and yours will shout back, “Yes!”
just as the water winds up
cogs of waves
that will roll and grind over us.
But I guess it is not
going to be like that at all.
I no longer know the odors in my dreams.
I start to make a canoe
out of my comforter,
but the dreams say no, we don’t
do that anymore, either.
Another ghost goes
into an old olive jar
before we go out for drinks.
The jar is our tambourine
while we karaoke.
We adjust each other’s facemasks.
Water hen pecks at our fingers until
purse snatching
is only possible through several layers of band aids.
My mask nicks your neck.
I slip the canoe under my tattoo.
and release it into the back yard.
The upside-down canoe
is our dance hall
until, with one foot off
the ground and glass pooling
into your hand, you ask how
it is that we know each other.
